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POETRY FOR CHILDREN. 



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POETRY FOR CHILD^N/^/5^ 



CHARLES AND MARY LAMB. 



TO WHICH ARE ADDED 



PRINCE DORUS 



AND SOME UNCOLLECTED POEMS BY CHARLES LAMB. 



EDITED, PREFACED AND ANNOTATED BY 



RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD. 



NEW-YORK: 

ScRiBNER, Armstrong & Co, 
1878. 



[All rights reserved.] 



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^i 



INTRODUCTION. 



Among the many and great services rendered to the 
world by WilHam Godwin during his earthly pilgrimage, 
we may reckon not as the least that lucky inspiration 
which prompted him, in the early years of this century, to 
establish a Juvenile Library, first in the name of Thomas 
Hodgkins in Hanway Street, and afterwards in that of 
his second wife in Skinner Street, and to issue from it a 
series of children's books of singular worth and excel- 
lence. For the execution of this scheme led him in an 
early stage of it to invoke the assistance of Charles Lamb 
and his sister in catering for his youthful clients ; and 
during the years 1806-1811 five successive delightful 
works were produced by them at his instigation and issued 
under his auspices, which, it is not too much to say, would 
probably never have seen the light but for this fortunate 
and most opportune book-selling project of William 
Godwin. 

The first of these pleasant pieces of task- work (doubly 



vi Introductio7i. 

acceptable as eking out the then slender salary of the 
brother, and as supplying a very wholesome fillip to the 
intellectual faculties of his poor sister, her mind having 
once found its natural bent) was the Tales from Shake- 
speare, commenced in 1806, and published in two volumes, 
with engravings by Blake after designs by Mulready, in 
1807.' Although this work bore on the title-page the 
name of' Charles Lamb alone as its author, only six of the 
tales, King Lear, Macbeth, Timo7i of Athens, Romeo and 
Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello, were actually written by 
him; the remainder were the work of his sister. The 
Adventures of Ulysses,^ founded on Chapman's fine ver- 
sion of the Odyssey, followed; and this, we believe, was 
entirely from the hand of Charles Lamb, as it purported 
to be on the title. The third experiment or venture was 
a joint production of a different character. Mrs. Leices- 
tcr''s School,^ published anonymously in the winter of 
i8d8, consisted of ten stories in prose, of which three, 

- Tales from Shakespeare, designed for the use of Yotmg Persons. 
By Charles Lamb. Embellished with copper plates. In tzuo volumes, 
pp. xii. 235, 261. London. Printed for Thomas Hodgkins at the 
Juvenile Library, Hanway Street (opposite Soho Square), Oxford 
Street; and to be had of all booksellers. 1807. 

2 The Adventures of Ulysses. By Charles Lamb. London. Pub- 
lished at the Juvenile Library, No. 41, Skinner Street, pp. viii. 148. 

'^Mrs. Leicester'' s School ; or, the History of Several Young Ladies, 
related by ihejjiselves London. Printed for M. J. Godwin, at the 
Juvenile Library, No. 41, Skinner Street, 1809, pp. 179; Third 
Edition, iSio, pp. iSo; Fourth Edition, 1814, pp. 176. 



Introduction. vii 

Maria Howe, Susa?i Yates, and Arabella Hardy, were 
written by Charles, and the remaining seven by Mary Lamb. 

These three little works, produced in such rapid succes- 
sion (it should be remembered too that Charles Lamb's 
admirable Specimens of Dra^natic Foets^ pubhshed by 
another house in 1808/ must have been in hand during 
a part of the time), and affording a salutary intellectual 
stimulus, and a modest meed of pecuniary profit much 
needed both by brother and sister, enjoyed a consider- 
able amount of popularity. The least successful of the 
three was probably The Adventures of Ulysses ; but the 
Tales from Shakespeare ran through several editions in a 
few years; and Mrs. Leicester's School-^i\\Q most suc- 
cessful of all— through a still larger number. 

Encouraged by the popularity almost immediately 
achieved by the last-named pubhcation, the Christmas 
season of 1808 saw Charles and Mary Lamb hard at 
work on a new joint venture — this time in verse — a series 
of rhymed fables, stories, and moral precepts for children. 
These were completed during the following six months, 
and were pubhshed in two tiny i8mo volumes (in the 
month of June apparently) 1809, under the title of Poetry 
for Children, entirely Original. By the Author of Mrs. 
Leicester's School, " I shall have to send you, in a week 

1 Specime7is of English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of 
Shakespeare, with Notes. By Charles Lamb. London. Printed for 
Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row, 1808, pp. vii. 



vili Introduction. 

or two," writes Lamb to Coleridge .(under date June 7, 
1809), "two volumes of Juvenile Poetry, done by Mary 
and me withm the last six mo7it/is, and that tale in 
prose which Wordsworth so much liked, which was 
pubhshed at Christmas with nine others, by us, and has 
reached a second edition. There's for you! We have 
almost worked ourselves out of child's work, and I 
don't know what to do. ... I am quite aground for 
a plan, and I must do something for money. .... Our 
little poems are but humble; but they have no name. 
You must read them, remembering they were task- 
work; and perhaps you will admire the number of sub- 
jects, all of children, picked out by an old bachelor 
and an old maid. Many parents would not have found 
so many." To another correspondent, Manning, Lamb 
writes early in the following year (January 2, 1810) : — 
" There comes with this two volumes of minor poetry, a 
sequel to Mrs. Leicester ; the best," he playfully adds, 
"you may suppose mine, the next best are my coad- 
jutor's. You may amuse yourself by guessing them out, 
but I must tell you juine are but one-tJiird in quantity of 
the wholeT 

The fate of this book was singular. The whole edi- 
tion was rapidly sold off, and it went out of print within 
a short time of its publication, without, however, being 
reprinted, like its three predecessors. But in two other 
publications issued from the same Juvenile Library in 
1 8 10, and which passed through innumerable editions 



Inti^odudion. Ix 

during the lifetime of Lamb and his sister, viz., the 
First Book of Poetry, and the Poetical Class-Book of 
WiUiam Frederick MyHus, twenty-six pieces, out of eighty- 
four which Poetry for Children comprises, were inserted, 
doubtless with the knowledge and consent, but apparently 
without the active assistance of the writers. Three years 
after its original publication in London the Poetry for 
Childreji (or, at least, eighty-one pieces out of the eighty- 
four) was reprinted in a single volume, across the Atlan- 
tic, at Boston in Massachusetts.^ Neither Charles Lamb 
nor his sister was ever probably made aware of this fact. 

In the meantime in England the book dropped gradu- 
ally out of sight and knowledge. In 1818, when collecting 
his " Works," Lamb printed three of his own contribu-. 
tions to it. The Three Friends, Queen Oriana^s Dream, 
To a River in which a Child was drowned, and one only 
of his sister's, David i7i the Cave of Adiillam. Some years 
afterwards (1822) he reprinted another of his sister's con- 
tributions. The Two Boys, in his Detached Thoughts on 
Books and Reading.^ He neglected, however, to keep a 

1 Poetry for Children, entirely Original. By the author of " Mrs. 
Liei ester's (sic) School." Boston: Published by West and Richardson^ 
and Edward Cotton, 1812, pp. 144 (inclusive of Title and Contents), 

^ This was pointed out more than ten years ago in Notes and 
Queries (3rd S. xii., July 27, 1867, p. 72), by a correspondent dating 
from Philadelphia, and evidently writing with the American reprint 
before him. " Charles Lamb's sister Mary," he says, " was the 
'quaint poetess ' who wrote the verses called The Two Boys, quoted 
in one of his Essays. They are to be found in a volume published 



X Introdtixtion. 

copy of the book, and in 1827 he writes to Bernard 
Barton, informing him that " it is not to be had for hve or 
7noneyr 

Half a century had to elapse before the book which 
had thus become " introuvable " in the lifetime of its 
authors, came fairly forth again into the light of human 
ken. A few years ago attention was gradually drawn to 
its mysterious disappearance, and curiosity was excited 
and whetted by the publication in more than one form 
of such sibylline leaves of the lost book as could be col- 
lected from the Mylius Class-Books and other sources. ^ 
At last, in the earlier half of the present year (1877), 
there reached us from Adelaide, in South Australia, the 
two precious though tiny tomes of the original English 
edition, — a courteous and most welcome gift from the 
Hon. Wilham Sandover, who purchased them among 
others at a sale of furniture and books at Plymouth, when 
on a visit to England in the year 1866. 

In July, 1877, there appeared in The Gentleman^ s ■ 
Magazine^ a paper descriptive of the book, and con- 

early in this century, and entitled Poetry for Children, entirely- 
original. By the author of ' Mrs. Leicester's School.' " 

1 Poetry for Children, By Charles and Mary Lamb. Edited and 
Prefaced by Richard Heme Shepherd. London. B. M. Pickering, 
1872. Maiy and Charles Lamb : Poems, Letters, and Remains, now 
first collected, luiih Reminiscences and Azotes. By IV. Carew Hazlitt. 
London. Chatto and Windus, 1874, pp. 92-119. 

^ Vol. ccxli. pp. 1 13-122. 5 Discovery of LamFs Poetry for Children. 



Introduction. xi 

taming copious extracts from it. This article, largely 
quoted by a number of English and American journals, 
elicited the discovery of two copies of the Boston reprint 
of Poetry for Children^ the very existence of which was 
before unknown. One of these, through the kindness 
of Dr. E. J. Marsh, of Paterson, New Jersey, now lies 
before us. 

The task of separating the poems of Charles from those 
of Mary Lamb, will not, perhaps, prove so difficult as it 
at first appears. Although no indication whatever of 
separate authorship is given in the volumes themselves, 
we have our independent knowledge of the mind, work, 
and individual character of each. We have, moreover, 
Lamb's distinct assurance in his letter to Manning : " Mine 
are but one-third in quantity of the whole." We have 
the three poems which he afterwards republished as his 
own, and the three which he republished or quoted as 
his sister's, affording an absolute certainty as to the author- 
ship of the six pieces in question, and supplying valuable 
criteria for the rightful attribution of the others, just as 
in the joint schoolboy publication of Alfred and Charles 
Tennyson,' similar evidence for separating the poems of 
one brother from those of the other is afforded by the 
prize poem of Timbiictoo, and the volume of " Poems, 
chiefly Lyrical," which Alfred Tennyson published in. 
1829 and 1830, and by the little volume of Sonnets and 

^ Poems by Two Brothers. Louth: Jackson, 1827. 



xii Introduction. 

miscellaneous pieces which Charles Tennyson published 
with his own name at Cambridge in 1830. 

It is established by their admission into the body of 
his collected writings that Charles Lamb was the author 
of The Three Frie?ids, of Qiteen Oriand's Dream, and of 
the lines To a River in which a Child was drowned. The 
two volumes of the original edition of Poetry for Children 
contain 207 pages of letter-press, of which these three 
poems cover fourteen pages only. Now a third of 207 
pages (according to Cocker) is 69, and Lamb's share was 
" one-third i7i quantity of the whole." We have there- 
fore to account for some 55 pages more. I venture to 
suggest the following pieces (occupying 56 pages in the 
original edition) as not improbably his : The Reaper's 
Child, The Ride, Choosing a Name, The New-bor?i Infant, 
Motes in the Sunbeams, The Boy and Snake, The First of 
April, The Lame Brother, Feigned Courage, Anger, 
Blindness, The Orange, the Magpie's Nest, The Boy and . 
the Skylark, The Men and Women and the Monkeys, 
Love, Death, and Reputation, The Sparrow and the Hen, 
Choosing a Profession, Weeding, Parental Recollections, 
Nurse Green, Clock Striking, Why not do it, sir, to-day ? 
The Dessert, The Fairy, The Great-grandfather, In 
most if not in all of the pieces enumerated, a deeper 
and more dehcate vein of humor, or a higher touch of 
pathos and tenderness (not to speak of a skilfuller finish 
of execution) than is found in the rest of the book, seems 
to indicate the hand of Charles Lamb. 



Introduction. xiii 

To Mary Lamb we are certainly right in assigning the 
three poems entitled The First Tooth, The Two Boys, and 
David in the Cave of Adiillafn. It is hardly too rash an 
assumption to conclude that the writer of the last-named 
poem was the writer also of the previous poem narrating 
the story of David and Goliath, and also, in all probability, 
of that On a Picture of the Finding of Moses by 
Pharaoh's Daughter^ and of The Spartan Boy. These 
four poems are, in their own manner, as fine as almost 
anything in the book ; but the same praise can in no wise 
be accorded to the majority of Mary Lamb's other con- 
tributions. They are easily distinguished from her 
brother's by a prevalence of cockney rhymes, of halting 
metre, and frequently, though not always, of a cut-and- 
dried morality of which it is impossible to suppose that 
Charles Lamb could have been capable. We cannot 
imagine him making " sex " rhyme with " protects," as in 
The Duty of a Brother (p. 50) ; " withdrawn " with 
"forlorn," as in The Rook and the Sparrows (p. 12), or 
"Anna" with manner," as in the stanzas on Bicorrect 
Speakifig (p. 125). At its worst, however, the Poetry for 
Children ranks infinitely higher, both in poetical merit 
and mtellectual outlook, than the similar productions of 

^ Another scriptural poem, "Salome," printed by Lamb as his 
sister's in his Collected works in 1818, partakes of the same style 
and manner as the three pieces mentioned above ; and we should be 
inclined to think that it was written for the Poetry for Children, and 
omitted for want of space. 



xiv Introductio7i. 

Isaac Watts and of the Taylors of Ongar, which have 
ob tamed so world-wide a popularity. The morality, 
though always apparent, is broader and freer, more whole- 
some and less obtrusive. 

So much may b^e said for the Poetry for Children at its 
worst; and at its best it reminds us often enough of the 
Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth, of whom Lamb and his 
sister were among the most intimate friends and earliest 
admirers ; and they are almost consciously formed on this 
model. Here and there, but at long intervals, the in- 
fluence of Blake's Songs of Innocence may perhaps be 
traced by those who read with sufficient insight ; but there 
is only one poem that has fully caught the manner and 
breathes the spirit of Blake ; and certainly Blake himself 
might have written the two stanzas entitled Motes in the 
Sunbeams. But the difference of treatment generally can 
hardly be better illustrated than by comparing the lines 
descriptive of the tiger in the poem entitled The Beasts 
in the Tower (p. 131) with Blake's Famous poem of The 
Tiger. , 

In his letter to Coleridge, advising him of the ap- 
proaching publication of the Poetry for Childreji, Lamb 
had, we have seen, declared that he had " almost worked 
himself out of child's work," and he was " aground for a 
new plan." One more story, however — a fairy tale in 
verse, entirely of his own writing — was published at 
Godwin's Juvenile Library in 181 1. Prince Dorus\^\}i\Q 
last and the least (though not perhaps the least in merit) 



Introduction. xv 

of the series of works written by Lamb and his sister for 
children. To this humorous httle poem there is no 
alhision in Lamb's pubhshed Correspondence, and it has 
only been discovered to be his by an incidental reference 
to it in the diary of the late Henry Crabb Robinson 
(under date May 15, 1811).^ Through the kindness of 
Mr. J. C. MacGregor of Kilbride, Dunoon, Argyleshire, 
we have been enabled to add this interesting and for- 
gotten little piece to the present reprint of the Poetry for 
Childreji. We have also included some shorter poems 
by Charles Lamb either recently brought to light, or 
omitted from our Centenary Edition of his Works pub- 
lished three years ago. 

RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD. 

5, Hereford Square, Brompton. 
October, 1877. 

^ Ed. 1869, vol. i. p. 329. 



CONTENTS. 



POETRY FOR CHILDREN : — 

PAGE 

ENVY I 

THE REAPER'S CHILD 3 

THE RIDE 4 

THE BUTTERFLY 5 

THE PEACH 8 

CHOOSING A NAME 9 

CRUMBS TO THE BIRDS , II 

THE ROOK AND THE SPARROWS 12 

DISCONTENT AND QUARRELLING I4 

REPENTANCE AND RECONCILIATION 1 6 

NEATNESS IN APPAREL ". 18 

THE NEW-BORN INFANT I9 

MOTES IN THE SUNBEAMS 21 

THE BOY AND THE SNAKE 22 

THE FIRST TOOTH 2$ 



xviii Contents. 

POETRY FOR CHILDREN (Continued): — 

PAGE 

TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED ... 27 

THE FIRST OF APRIL 28 

CLEANLINESS 30 

THE LAME BROTHER ..... 32 

GOING INTO BREECHES 34 

NURSING 36 

THE TEXT 37 

THE END OF MAY ...... 41 

FEIGNED COURAGE 45 

THE BROKEN DOLL 46 

THE DUTY OF A BROTHER. . . 48 

WASPS IN A GARDEN 5 I 

WHAT IS FANCY ? 53 

ANGER 55 

BLINDNESS 56 

THE MIMIC HARLEQUIN 58 

WRITTEN IN THE FIRST LEAF OF A CHILD'S MEMO- 
RANDUM-BOOK 59 

MEMORY 60 

THE REPROOF 62 

THE TWO BEES 64 

THE JOURNEY FROM SCHOOL AND TO SCHOOL 6-] 

THE ORANGE 69 



Contents. xix 

POETRY FOR CHILDREN (Continued): — 

PAGE 

THE YOUNG LETTER WRITER 72 

THE THREE FRIENDS 74 

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER 83 

''SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, AND FORBID THEM 

NOT, TO COME UNTO ME "..... . : 85 

THE MAGPIE'S NEST, OR A LESSON OF DOCILITY, 

A FABLE , 87 

THE BOY AND THE SKYLARK, A FABLE 9! 

THE MEN AND WOMEN, AND THE MONKEYS, A FABLE ^95 

LOVE, DEATH, AND REPUTATION, A FABLE 96 

THE SPARROW AND THE HEN. .... ........ 97 

WHICH IS THE FAVORITE ? . 99 

THE BEGGAR-MAN lOI 

CHOOSING A PROFESSION ....... I03 

BREAKFAST I05 

WEEDING . . 107 

PARENTAL RECOLLECTIONS 109 

THE TWO BOYS IIO 

THE OFFER Ill 

THE SISTER'S EXPOSTULATION ON THE BROTHER'S 

LEARNING LATIN 1 13 

THE BROTHER'S REPLY. ...... II5 

NURSE GREEN I18 



XX Coittents. 

POETRY FOR CHILDREN (Continued):-^ 

PAGE 

GOOD TEMPER I20 

MODERATION IN DIET 122 

INCORRECT SPEAKING i25 

CHARITY 126 

MY BIRTHDAY I29 

THE BEASTS IN THE TOWER 13 1 

THE CONFIDANT 134 

THOUGHTLESS CRUELTY I36 

EYES 138 

PENNY PIECES 140 

THE RAINBOW 14I 

THE FORCE OF HABIT 143 

CLOCK STRIKING I45 

WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY ? 146 

HOME DELIGHTS 147 

THE COFFEE SLIPS 148 

THE DESSERT 150 

TO A YOUNG LADY ON BEING TOO FOND OF MUSIC 1 52 

TIME SPENT IN DRESS 155 

THE FAIRY I57 

CONQUEST OF PREJUDICE 1 59 

THE GREAT GRANDFATHER 163 

THE SPARTAN BOY • 165 



Contents. xxi 

POETRY FOR CHILDREN (Continued): — 

QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM 1^8 

ON A PICTURE OF THE FINDING OF MOSES BY 

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER I/O 

DAVID ■^ '^^ 

DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM 179 

PRINCE DORUS • ^^^ 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS: — 

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS WESTWOOD'S 

ALBUM • 199 

LINES ADDRESSED TO LIEUT. R. W. H. HARDY, ON 
THE PERUSAL OF HIS VOLUME OF TRAVELS IN 

THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO • • • 200 

THE FIRST LEAF OF SPRING. • . • • 20I 

THE APE 203 

PROLOGUE TO .FAULKENER : A TRAGEDY BY WIL- 
LIAM GODWIN, 1807 206 

TO THE POET COWPER ON HIS RECOVERY FROM 

INDISPOSITION 208 

LINES ADDRESSED FROM LONDON TO SARA AND 

S. T. C. AT BRISTOL • • • 209 

SONNET TO A FRIEND 211 

SONNET. 212 



POETRY FOR CHILDREN, 

ENTIRELY ORIGINAL. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MRS. LEICESTER'S SCHOOL." 
1809. 



POETRY FOR CHILDREN. 



ENVY. 

This rose-tree is not made to bear 
The violet blue, nor lily fair, 

Nor the sweet mignonette : 
And if this tree were discontent. 
Or wished to change its natural bent, 

It all in vain would fret. 



And should it fret, you would suppose 
It ne'er had seen its own red rose, 

Nor after gentle shower 
Had ever smelled its rose's scent, 
Or it could ne'er be discontent 

With its own pretty flower. 



Poetry 



Like such a blind and senseless tree 
As I've imagined this to be, 

All envious persons are : 
With care and culture all may find 
Some pretty flower in their own mind, 

Some talent that is rare. 



for Children. 



THE REAPER'S CHILD. 

If you go to the field where the reapers now bind 
The sheaves of ripe corn, there a fine Httle lass, 

Only three months of age, by the hedge-row you'll find, 
Left alone by its mother upon the low grass. 



While the mother is reaping, the infant is sleeping; 

Not the basket that holds the provisions is less 
By the hard-working reaper, than this little sleeper, 

Regarded, till hunger does on the babe press. 



Then it opens its eyes, and it utters loud cries, 
Which its hard-working mother afar off will hear; 

She comes at its calling, she quiets its squalling. 
And feeds it, and leaves it aerain without fear. 



When you were as young as this field-nursed daughter, 
You were fed in the house, and brought up on the knee ; 

So tenderly watched, thy fond mother thought her 
Whole time well bestowed in nursing of thee. 



Poetry 



THE RIDE. 

Lately an equipage I overtook, 
And helped to lift it o'er a narrow brook. 
No horse it had except one boy, who drew 
His sister out in it the fields to view. 

happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going 

For the first time to see the green grass growing. 
This was the end and purport of the ride 

1 learned as walking slowly by their side 
I heard their conversation. Often she — 

" Brother, is this the country that I see ? " 

The bricks were smoking, and the ground was broke, 

There were no signs of verdure when she spoke. 

He, as the well-informed delight in chiding 

The ignorant, these questions still deriding, 

To his good judgment modestly she yields; 

Till, brick-kilns past, they reached the open fields. 

Then, as with rapturous wonder round she gazes 

On the green grass, the buttercups, and daisies, 

"This is the country sure enough," she cries; 

" Is't not a charming place ? " The boy replies, 

" We'll go no further." " No," says she, " no need 

" No finer place than this can be indeed." 

I left them gathering flowers, the happiest pair 

That ever London sent to breath the fine fresh air. 



for Children, 



THE BUTTERFLY. 



Do, my dearest brother John, 
Let that butterfly alone. 

BROTHER. 

What harm now do I do ? 
You're always making such a noise — 



O fie, John ; none but naughty boy . 
Say such rude words as you. 



Because you're always speaking sharp: 
On the same thing you always harp. 

A bird one may not catch, 
Nor find a nest, nor angle neither, 
Nor firom the peacock pluck a feather, 

But you are on the watch 
To moralize and lecture still. 



Poetry 



And ever lecture, John, I will, 

When such sad things I hear. 

But talk not now of what is past; 

The moments fly away too fast, 

Though endlessly they seem to last 
To that poor soul in fear. 

BROTHER. 

Well, soon (I say) I'll let it loose; 
But, sister, you talk like a goose. 
There's no soul in a fly. 



It has a form and fibres fine. 
Were tempered by the hand divine 

Who dwells beyond the sky. 
Look, brother, you have hurt its wing- 
And plainly by its fluttering 

You see it's in distress. 
Gay painted coxcomb, spangled beau, 
A butterfly is cafled, you know. 

That's always in full dress : 
The finest gentleman of all 
Insects he is — he gave a bafl, 

You know the poet wrote. 



for Children, 

Let's fancy this the very same, 
And then you'll own you've been to blame 
To spoil his silken coat. 



Your dancing, spangled, powdered beau, 
Look, through the air I've let him go : 

And now we're friends again. 
As sure as he is in the air, 
From this time, Ann, I will take care, 

And try to be humane. 



Poetry 



THE PEACH. 

Mamma gave us a single peach, 
She shared it among seven; 

Now you may think that unto each 
But a small piece was given. 

Yet though each share was very small, 
We owned when it was eaten, 

Being so little for us all 
Did its fine flavor heighten. 

The tear was in our parent's eye. 
It seemed quite out of season; 

When we asked wherefore she did cry, 
She thus explained the reason : — 

" The cause, my children, I may say, 
Was joy, and not dejection; 

The peach, which made you all so gay. 
Gave rise to this reflection : 

" It's many a mother's lot to share. 
Seven hungry children viewing, 

A morsel of the coarsest fare, 
As I this peach was doing." 



for Childreit. 



CHOOSING A NAME. 

I HAVE got a new-bom sister; 

I was nigh the first that kissed her. 

When the nursing woman brought her 

To papa, his infant daughter, 

How papa's dear eyes did glisten! — 

She will shortly be to christen; 

And papa has made the offer, 

I shall have the naming of her. 

Now I wonder what would please her, 
Charlotte, JuUa, or Louisa. 
Ann and Mary, they're too common; 
Joan's too formal for a woman; 
Jane's a prettier name beside; 
But we had a Jane that died. 
They would say if 'twas Rebecca, 
That she was a little Quaker. 
Edith's pretty, but that looks 
Better in old EngUsh books; 
Ellen's left off long ago; 
Blanche is out of fashion now. 



lO Poetry 

None that I have named as yet 

Are so good as Margaret. 

Emily is neat and fine. 

What do you think of CaroHne? 

How I'm puzzled and perplext 

What to choose or think of next! 

I am in a little fever. 

Lest the name that I shall give her 

Should disgrace her or defame her, 

I will leave papa to name her. 



for Children. ii 



CRUMBS TO THE BIRDS. 

A BIRD appears a thoughtless thing, 
He's ever Hving on the wing, 
And keeps up such a carolhng, 
That httle else to do but sing 

A man would guess had he. 



No doubt he has his little cares, 
And very hard he often fares, 
The which so patiently he bears, 
That, listening to those cheerful airs, 

Who knows but he may be 

In want of his next meal of seeds ? 
I think for that his sweet song pleads. 
If «so, his pretty art succeeds. 
I'll scatter there among the weeds 

All the small crui"bs I see. 



1 2 Poetry 



THE ROOK AND THE SPARROWS. 

A LITTLE boy with crumbs of bread 
Many a hungry sparrow fed. 
It was a child of httle sense. 
Who this kind bounty did dispense; 
For suddenly it was withdrawn, 
And all the birds were left forlorn, 
In a hard time of frost and snow. 
Not knowing where for food to go. 
He would no longer give them bread, 
Because he had observed (he said) 
That sometimes to the window came 
A great black bird, a rook by name, 
And took away a small bird's share. 
So foolish Henry did not care 
What became of the great rook, 
That from the little sparrows took. 
Now and then, as 'twere by stealth, 
A part of their abundant wealth; 
Nor ever more would feed his sparrows. 
Thus igjiorance a kind heart narrows. 
I wish I had been there, I would 



for Children. 13 

Have told the child, rooks live by food 
In the same way that sparrows do. 
I also would have told him too, 
Birds act by instinct, and ne'er can 
Attain the rectitude of man. 
Nay that even, when distress 
Does on poor human nature press, 
We need not be too strict in seeing 
The failings of a fellow being. 




14 Poetry 



DISCONTENT AND QUARRELLING. 

JANE. 

Miss Lydia every day is drest 
Better than I am in my best 

White cambric-musUn frock. 
I wish I had one made of clear 
Worked lawn, or leno very dear. — 

And then my heart is broke 

Almost to think how cheap my doll 

Was bought, when hers cost — yes, cost full 

A pound, it did, my brother; 
Nor has she had it weeks quite five, 
Yet, 'tis as true as I'm alive. 

She's soon to have another. 



O mother, hear my sister Jane, 
How fooHshly she does complain, 

And tease herself for nought. 
But 'tis the way of all her sex. 
Thus foolishly themselves to vex. 

Envy's a female fault. 



for Children. 

JANE. 

O brother Robert, say not so; 
It is not very long ago, 

Ah ! brother, you've forgot, 
When speaking of a boy you knew, 
Remember how you said that you 

Envied his happy lot. 



Let's see, what were the words I spoke ? 
Why, may be I was half in joke — 
May be I just might say — 
Besides that was not half so bad; 
For, Jane, I only said he had 
More time than I to play. 

JANE. 

O may be, may be, very well : 
And may be, brother, I don't tell 
Tales to mamma like you. 



O cease your wrangling, cease, my dears; 
You would not wake a mother's fears 
Thus, if you better knew. 



1 6 Poetry 



REPENTANCE AND RECONCILIATION. 

JANE. 

Mamma is displeased and looks very grave, 

And I own, brother, I was to blame 
Just now when I told her I wanted to have. 

Like Miss Lydia, a very fine naine. 
'Twas foolish, for, Robert, Jane sounds very well, 

When mamma says, " I love my good Jane." 
I've been lately so naughty, I hardly can tell 

If she ever will say so again. 



We are each of us foolish, and each of us young, 

And often in fault and to blame. 
Jane, yesterday I was too free with my tongue, 

I acknowledge it now to my shame. 
For a speech in my good mother's hearing I made, 

Which reflected upon her whole sex; 
And now like you, Jenny, I am much afraid 

That this might my dear mother vex. 



for Children. 17 

JANE. 

But yet, brother Robert, 'twas not quite so bad 

As that naughty reflection of mine, 
When I grumbled because Liddy Bellenger had 

Dolls and dresses expensive and fine. 
For then 'twas of her, her own self, I complained; 
Since mamma does provide all I have. 



Your repentance, my children, I see is unfeigned, 

You are now my good Robert, and now my good Jane; 
And if you will never be naughty again. 

Your fond mother will never look grave. 




1 8 Poetry 



NEATNESS IN APPAREL. 

In your garb and outward clothing 
A reserved plainness use; 

By their neatness more distinguished 
Than the brightness of their hues. 



All the colors in the rainbow 

Serve to spread the peacock's train; 

Half the lustre of his feathers 

Would turn twenty coxcombs vain. 



Yet the swan that swims in rivers, 
Pleases the judicious sight; 

Who, of brighter colors heedless, 
Trusts alone to simple white. 



Yet all other hues compared 
With his whiteness, show amiss; 

And the peacock's coat of colors 
Like a fool's coat looks by his. 



for Children, 19 



THE NEW-BORN INFANT. 

Whether beneath sweet beds of roses, 
As foolish Httle Ann supposes, 
The spirit of a babe reposes 

Before it to the body come; 
Or, as philosophy more wise 
Thinks it descendeth from the skies, — 

We know the babe's now in the room 



And that is all which is quite clear 
Even to philosophy, my dear. 

The God that made us can alone 
Reveal from whence a spirit's brought 
Into young life, to hght, and thought; 

And this the wisest man must own. 

We'll now talk of the babe's surprise, 
When first he opens his new eyes. 

And first receives delicious food. 
Before the age of six or seven. 
To mortal children is not given 

Much reason; or I think he would 



20 



Poetry 



(And very naturally) wonder 

What happy star he was born under, 

That he should be the only care 
Of the dear sweet-food-giving lady, 
Who fondly calls him her own baby. 

Her darling hope, her infant heir. 



for Children, 21 



MOTES IN THE SUNBEAMS. 

The motes up and down in the sun 
Ever restlessly moving we see; 

Whereas the great mountains stand still, 
Unless terrible earthquakes there be. 

If these atoms that move up and down 
Were as useful as restless they are, 

Than a mountain I rather would be 
A mote in the sunbeam so fair. 



2 2 • Poetry 



THE BOY AND THE SNAKE. 

Henry was every morning fed 
With a full mess of milk and bread. 
One day the boy his breakfast took 
And eat it by a purling brook 
Which through his mother's orchard ran. 
From that time ever when he can 
Escape his mother's eye, he there 
Takes his food in th' open air. 
Finding the child dehght to eat 
Abroad, and make the grass his seat, 
His mother lets him have his way. 
With free leave Henry every day 
Thither repairs, until she heard 
Him talking of a fine grey bird. 
This pretty bird, he said, indeed, 
Came every day with him to feed, 
And it loved him, and loved his milk, 
And it was smooth and soft like silk. 
His mother thought she'd go and see 
What sort of bird this same might be. 
So the next morn she follows Harry, 
And carefully she sees him carry 



for Children, 23 

Through the long grass his heaped-up mess. 

What was her terror and distress, 

When she saw the infant take 

His bread and milk close to a snake! 

Upon the grass he spreads his feast, 

And sits down by his frightful guest, 

Who had waited for the treat; 

And now they both begin to eat. 

Fond mother! shriek not, O beware 

The least small noise, O have a care — 

The least small noise that may be made, 

The wily snake will be afraid — 

If he hear the Ughtest sound, 

He will inflict th' envenomed wound. 

She speaks not, moves not, scarce does breathe, 

As she stands the trees beneath; 

No sound she utters; and she soon 

Sees the child lift up its spoon, 

And tap the snake upon the head. 

Fearless of harm ; and then he said, 

As speaking to familiar mate, 

" Keep on your own side, do, Grey Pate ; " 

The snake then to the other side, 

As one rebuked seems to ghde; 

And now again advancing nigh, 

Again she hears the infant cry. 

Tapping the snake, " Keep further, do ; 

Mind, Grey Pate, what I say to you." 



24 Poetry 

The danger's o'er— she sees the boy 
(O what a change from fear to joy!) 
Rise and bid the snake "good-bye;" 
Says he, " Our breakfast's done, and I 
Will come again to-morrow day : " 
Then, lightly tripping, ran away. 




for Children. 25 



THE FIRST TOOTH. 



Through the house what busy joy, 

Just because the infant boy 

Has a tiny tooth to show. 

I have got a double row, 

All as white, and all as small; 

Yet no one cares for mine at all. 

He can say but half a word, 

Yet that single sound's preferred 

To all the words that I can say 

In the longest summer day. 

He cannot walk, yet if he put 

With mimic motion out his foot, 

As if he thought he were advancing. 

It's prized more than my best dancing. 



Sister, I know, you jesting are, 
Yet O ! of jealousy beware. 
If the smallest seed should be 
In your mind of jealousy, 



26 Poetry 

It will spring, and it will shoot, 
Till it bear the baneful fruit. 
I remember you, my dear, 
Young as is this infant here. 
There was not a tooth of those 
Your pretty even ivory rows. 
But as anxiously was watched, 
Till it burst its shell new hatched,- 
As if it a Phoenix were. 
Or some other wonder rare. 
So when you began to walk — 
So when you began to talk — 
As now, the same encomiums past. 
'Tis not fitting this should last 
Longer than our infant days; 
A child is fed with milk and praise. 



for Children. 27 



TO A RIVER 
IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED. 

Smiling river, smiling river, 
On thy bosom smibeams play : 

Though they're fleeting and retreating, 
Thou hast more deceit than they. 



In thy channel, in thy channel. 

Choked with ooze and gravelly stones, 

Deep immersed, and unhearsed. 

Lies young Edward's corse : his bones 



Ever whitening, ever whitening. 
As thy waves against them dash; 

What thy torrent in the current 
Swallowed, now it helps to wash. 

As if senseless, as if senseless 
Things had feelings in this case; 

What so blindly, and unkindly, 
It destroyed, it now does grace. 



28 Poetry 



THE FIRST OF APRIL. 

" Tell me what is the reason you hang down your head ? 

From your blushes I plainly discern 
You have done something wrong. Ere you go up to bed, 

I desire that the truth I may learn." 

" O mamma, I have longed to confess all the da,y 
What an ill-natured thing I have done; 

I persuaded myself it was only in play, 
But such play I in future will shun. 

" The least of the ladies that Hve at the school, 
Her whose eyes are so pretty and blue, 

Ah! would you beHeve it? an April fool 
I have made her, and called her so too. 

"Yet the words almost choked me; and, as I spoke low, 
I have hopes that she might them not hear. 

I had wrapped up some rubbish in paper, and so, 
The instant the school-girls drew near. 



for Children. 29 

" I presented it with a fine bow to the child, 

And much her acceptance I pressed; 
When she took it, and thanked me, and gratefully smiled, 

I never felt half so distressed. 



"No doubt she concluded some sweetmeats were there, 

For the paper was white and quite clean, 
And folded up neatly, as if with great care. 

what a rude boy I have been ! 

"Ever since I've been thinking how vexed she will be, 

Ever since I've done nothing but grieve. 
If a thousand young ladies a-walking I see, 

1 will never another deceive." 



30 Poetry 



CLEANLINESS. 

Come, my little Robert, near — 
Fie! what filthy hands are here — 
Who that e'er could understand 
The rare structure of a hand, 
With its branching fingers fine, 
Work itself of hands divine, 
Strong, yet delicately knit, 
For ten thousand uses fit, 
Overlaid with so clear skin, 
You may see the blood within, 
And the curious palm, disposed 
In such lines, some have supposed 
You may read the fortunes there 
By the figures that appear, — 
Who this hand would choose to cover 
With a crust of dirt all over. 
Till it looked in hue and shape 
Like the fore-foot of an ape? 
Man or boy that works or plays 
In the fields or the highways. 



for Children. 31 

May, without offence or hurt, 
From the soil contract a dirt, 
Which the next clear spring or river 
Washes out and out for ever — 
But to cherish stains impure 
Soil deliberate to endure, 
On the skin to fix a stain 
Till it works into the grain, 
Argues a degenerate mind, 
Sordid, slothful, ill inclined, 
Wanting in that self-respect, 
Which does virtue best protect. 



All-endearing cleanliness. 
Virtue next to godliness, 
Easiest, cheapest, needfuU'st duty. 
To the body health and beauty. 
Who that's human would refuse it, 
When a little water does it? 




34 Poetry 



GOING INTO BREECHES. 

Joy to Philipj he this day 

Has his long coats cast away. 

And (the childish season gone) 

Puts the manly breeches on. 

Officer on gay parade, 

Red-coat in his first cockade, 

Bridegroom in his wedding trim, 

Birthday beau surpassing him, 

Never did with conscious gait 

Strut about in half the state. 

Or the pride (yet firee from sin) 

Of my little Manikin : 

Never was there pride, or bliss, 

Half so rational as his. 

Sashes, frocks, to those that need 'em- 

Philip's limbs have got their freedom — 

He can run, or he can ride, 

And do twenty things beside, 

Which his petticoats forbad : 

Is he not a happy lad ? 

Now he's under other banners, 

He must leave his former manners; 



for Children. 35 

Bid adieu to female games, 
And forget their very names, 
Puss-in-corners, hide-and-seek. 
Sports for girls and punies weak ! 
Baste-the-bear he now may play at, 
Leap-frog, foot-ball, sport away at, 
' Show his strength and skill at cricket, 
Mark his distance, pitch his wicket. 
Run about in winter's snow 
Till his cheeks and fingers glow, 
Climb a tree, or scale a wall. 
Without any fear to fall. 
If he get a hurt or bruise, 
To complain he must refuse. 
Though the anguish and the smart 
Go unto his little heart, 
He must have his courage ready, 
Keep his voice and visage steady, 
Brace his eye-balls stiff as drum. 
That a tear may never come. 
And his grief must only speak 
From the color in his cheek. 
This and more he must endure, 
Hero he in miniature ! 
This and more must now be done 
Now the breeches are put on. 



36 Poetry 



. NURSING. 

O HUSH, my little baby brother; 

Sleep, my love, upon my knee. 
What though, dear child, we've lost our mother; 

That can never trouble thee. 



You are but ten weeks old to-morrow; 

What can you know of our loss ? 
The house is full enough of sorrow. 

Little baby, don't be cross. 

Peace, cry not so, my dearest love; 

Hush, my baby-bird, lie still. — 
He's quiet now, he does not move, 

Fast asleep is little Will. 

My only solace, only joy, 

Since the sad day I lost my mother, 
Is nursing her own Willy boy, 

^^^' litde orphan brother. 



for Children, 37 



THE TEXT. 

One Sunday eve a grave old man, 
Who had not been at church, did say, 

" EUza, tell me, if you can. 
What text our Doctor took to-day." 

She hung her head, she blushed for shame, 
One single word she did not know. 

Nor verse nor chapter she could name, 
Her silent blushes told him so. 

Again said he, " My little maid. 
What in the sermon did you hear? 

Come tell me that, for that may aid 
Me to find out the text, my dear." 



A tear stole down each blushing cheek. 
She wished she better had attended; 

She sobbing said, when she could speak, 
She heard not till 'twas almost ended. 



^S Poetry 

" Ah ! little heedless one, why what 
Could you be thinking on ? 'tis clear 

Some foolish fancies must have got 
Possession of your head, my dear. 



" What thoughts were they, Eliza, tell, 
Nor seek from me the truth to smother. 

'^0 1 remember very well, 

I whispered something to my brother. 



" I said, ' Be friends with me, dear Will ; ' 
We quarrelled, sir, at the church door, — 

Though he cried, ' Hush, don't speak, be still,' 
Yet I repeated these words o'er 



" Seven or eight times, I have no doubt. 

But here comes WiUiam, and if he 
The good things he has heard about 

Forgets too, sir, the fault's in me." 



" No, sir," said William, " though perplext 
And much disturbed by my sister, 

I in this matter of the text, 

I thank my memory, can assist her. 



for Children. 39 

" I have, and pride myself on havings 
A more retentive head than she." — ■ 

Then gracefully his right hand waving, 
He with no little vanity 



Recited gospel, chapter, verse — ■ 
I should be loath to spoil in metre 

All the good words he did rehearse, 
As spoken by our Lord to Peter. 



But surely never words from heaven 

Of peace and love more full descended; 

That we should seventy times seven 
Forgive our brother that offended. 



In every point of view he placed it, 
As he the Doctor's self had been, 

With emphasis and action graced it: 
But from his self-conceit 'twas seen 



Who had brought home the words, and who had 
A little on the meaning thought; 

Eliza now the old man knew had 

Learned that which William never caught. 



40 Poetry 

Without impeaching William's merit, 

His head but served him for the letter; 

Hers missed the words, but kept the spirit; 
Her memory to her heart was debtor. 




for Children, 41 



THE END OF MAY. 

" Our governess is not in school, 

So we may talk a bit; 
Sit down upon this little stool, 

Come, little Mary, sit : 

"And, my dear playmate, tell me why 
In dismal black you're drest ? 

Why does the tear stand in your eye ? 
With sobs why heaves your breast ? 

"When we're in grief, it gives relief 

Our sorrows to impart; 
When you've told why, my dear, you cry, 

'Twill ease your little heart." 

" O, it is trouble very bad 

Which causes me to weep ; 
All last night long we were so sad, 

Not one of us could sleep. 



42 Poetry 

" Beyond the seas my father went, 

'Twas very long ago ; 
And he last week a letter sent 

(I told you so, you know) 



" That he was safe in Portsmouth bay, 
And we should see him soon, 

Either the latter end of May, 
Or by the first of June. 



" The end of May was yesterday, 

We all expected him ; 
And in our best clothes we were dressed, 

Susan, and I, and Jim. 



" O how my poor dear mother smiled. 
And clapped her hands for joy; 

She said to me, ' Come here, my child. 
And Susan, and my boy. 



" ' Come all, and let us think,' said she, 
' What we can do to please 

Your father, for to-day will he 
Come home from off the seas. 



for Childre7i. 43 

" ' That you have won, my dear young son, 

A prize at school, we'll tell. 
Because you can, my little man, 

In writing all excel : 



" ' And you have made a poem, nearly 

All of your own invention : 
Will not your father love you dearly 

When this to him I mention ? 



" ' Your sister Mary, she can say 

Your poetry by heart; 
And to repeat your verses may 

Be little Mary's part. 



" ' Susan, for you, I'll say you do 
Your needlework with care. 

And stitch so true the wristbands new- 
Dear father's soon to wear ! ' 



" ' O hark ! ' said James ; ' I hear one speak ; 

'Tis like a seaman's voice.' — 
Our mother gave a joyful shriek; 

How did we all rejoice ! 



44 Poetry 

" ' My husband's come ! ' ' My father's here 1 ' 
But O, alas, it was not so; 
It was not as we said : 
A stranger seaman did appear, 
On his rough cheek there stood a tear, 
For he brought to us a tale of woe, — 
Our father dear was dead." 



for Children. 45 



FEIGNED COURAGE. 

Horatio, of ideal courage vain, 

Was flourishing in air his father's cane, 

And, as the fumes of valor swelled his pate, 

Now thought himself this hero, and now that: 

"And now," he cried, "I will Achilles be; 

My sword I brandish; see, the Trojans flee. 

Now I'll be Hector, when his angry blade 

A lane through heaps of slaughtered Grecians made! 

And now by deeds still braver I'll evince 

I am no less than Edward the Black Prince. — 

Give way, ye coward French — " As thus he spoke, 

And aimed in fancy a sufficient stroke 

To fix the fate of Cressy or Poictiers 

(The Muse relates the hero's fate with tears), ' 

He struck his milk-white hand against a nail, 

Sees his own blood and feels his courage fail. 

Ah! where is now that boasted valor flown, 

That in the tented field so late was shown ? 

Achilles weeps, great Hector hangs the head. 

And the Black Prince goes whimpering to bed. 



46 Poetry 



THE BROKEN DOLL. 

An infant is a selfish sprite; 

But what of that ? the sweet deUght 

Which from participation springs, 

Is quite unknown to these young things. 

We elder children then will smile 

At our dear little John awhile, 

And bear with him, until he see 

There is a sweet fehcity 

In pleasing more than only one 

Dear litde craving selfish John. 



He laughs, and thinks it a fine joke, 
That he our new wax doll has broke. 
Anger will never teach him better; 
We will the spirit and the letter 
Of courtesy to him display 
By taking in a friendly way 
These baby frolics; till he learn 
True sport from mischief to discern. 



for Children. 47 

Reproof a parent's province is: 
A sister's discipline is this ; 
By studied kindness to effect 
A little brother's young respect. 
What is a doll ? a fragile toy. 
What is its loss ? if the dear boy, 
Who half perceives he's done amiss, 
Retain impression of the kiss 
That followed instant on his cheek ; 
If the kind, loving words we speak 
Of " Never mind it," " We forgive," — 
If these in his short memory live 
Only, perchance, for half a day — 
Who minds a doll ^ if that should lay 
The first impression in his mind 
That sisters are to brothers kind? 
For thus the broken doll may prove 
Foundation to fraternal love. 




4^ Poetry 



THE DUTY OF A BROTHER. 

Why on your sister do you look, 
Octavius, with an eye of scorn, 

As scarce her presence you could brook ?- 
Under one roof you both were born. 

Why when she gently proffers speech, 
Do you ungently turn your head? 

Since the same sire gave life to each; 
With the same milk ye both were fed. 

Such treatment to a female, though 
A perfect stranger she might be, 

From you would most unmanly show; 
In you to her 'tis worse to see. 

When any ill-bred boys offend her. 

Showing their manhood by their sneers, 

It is your , business to defend her 
'Gainst their united taunts and jeers. 



for Children. 49 

And not to join the illiberal crew 
In their contempt of female merit; 

What's bad enough in them, from you 
Is want of goodness, want of spirit 



What if your rougher out-door sports 
Her less robustious spirits daunt; 

And if she join not the resorts 

Where you and your wild playmates haunt: 



Her milder province is at home; 

When your diversions have an end, 
When over-toiled from play you come, 

You'll find in her an in-doors friend. 



Leave not your sister to another; 

As long as both of you reside 
In the same house, who but her brother 

Should point her books, her studies guide? 



If Nature, who allots our cup, 

Than her has made you stronger, wiser; 
It is that you, as you grow up. 

Should be her champion, her adviser. 



50 



Poetry 



It is the law that hand intends 
Which framed diversity of sex; 

The man the woman still defends, 
The manly boy the girl protects. 



for Children, 51 



WASPS IN A GARDEN. 

The wall-trees are laden with fruit; 

The grape, and the plum, and the pear. 
The peach and the nectarine, to suit 

Every taste, in abundance are there. 

Yet all are not w^elcome to taste 

These kind bounties of Nature; for one 

From her open-spread table must haste 
To make room for a more favored son : 

As that wasp will soon sadly perceive, 
Who has feasted awhile on a plum; 

And, his thirst thinking now to relieve, 
For a sweet liquid draught he is come. 

He peeps in the narrow-mouthed glass. 

Which depends from a branch of the tree; 

He ventures to creep down, — alas! 
To be drowned in that delicate sea. 



52 Poetry 

"Ah say," my dear friend, "is it right 
These glass bottles are hung upon trees? 
*, Midst a scene of inviting delight 

Should we find such mementos as these ? ' 



" From such sights," said my friend, " we may draw 

A lesson, for look at that bee; 
Compared with the wasp which you saw. 

He will teach us what we ought to be. 



" He in safety industriously plies 
His sweet honest work all the day. 

Then home with his earnings he flies; 
Nor in thieving his time wastes away." — 



" O hush, nor with fables deceive," 

I replied, "which, though pretty, can ne'er 

Make me cease for that insect to grieve, 
Who in agony still does appear. 



" If a siinile ever you need. 

You are welcome to make a wasp do ; 
But you ne'er should mix fiction indeed 

With things that are serious and true." 



for C/iildirn. 53 



WHAT IS FANCY? 

SISTER. 

I AM to write three lines, and you 
Three others that will rhyme. 
There — now I've done my task. 



BROTHER. 

Three stupid lines as e'er I knew. 
When you've the pen next time, 
Some question of me ask. 



Then tell me, brother, and pray mind, 
Brother, you tell me true: 
What sort of thing is fa?tcy ? 



By all that I can ever find, 
'Tis something that is very new, 
And what no dunces can see. 



54 Poetry 



That is not half the way to tell 

What fancy is about ; 

So pray now tell me more. 



Sister, I think 'twere quite as well 
That you should find it out; 
So think the matter o'er. 



It's what comes in our heads when we 
Play at " Let's-make believe," 
And when we play at " Guessing." 

BROTHER. 

And I have heard it said to be 
A talent often makes us grieve, 
And sometimes proves a blessing. 



for Children, 55 



ANGER. 

Anger in its time and place 
May assume a kind of grace. 
It must have sonie reason in it, 
And not last beyond a minute. 
If to further lengths it go, 
It does into malice grow. 
'Tis the difference that we see 
'Twixt the serpent and the bee. 
If the latter you provoke, 
It inflicts a hasty stroke, 
Puts you to some little pain, 
But it never stings again. 
Close in tufted bush or brake 
Lurks the poison-swelled snake 
Nursing up his cherished wTath; 
In the purlieus of his path, 
In the cold, or in the warm, 
Mean him good, or mean him harm, 
Whensoever fate may bring you. 
The vile snake will always sting you. 



56 Poetry 



BLINDNESS. 

In a stage-coach, where late I chanced to be, 

A little quiet girl my notice caught; 
I saw she looked at nothing by the way. 

Her mind seemed busy on some childish thought. 

I with an old man's courtesy addressed 

The child, and called her pretty dark-eyed maid, 

And bid her turn those pretty eyes and see 
The wide extended prospect. " Sir," she said, 

" I cannot see the prospect, I am blind." 
Never did tongue of child utter a sound 

So mournful, as her words fell on my ear. 
Her mother then related how she found 

Her child was sightless. On a fine bright day 
She saw her lay her needlework aside. 

And, as on such occasions mothers will, 
For leaving off her work began to chide. 



for Children. 



57 



" I'll do it when 'tis daylight, if you please, 
I cannot work, mamma, now it is night." 

The sun shone bright upon her when she spoke, 
And yet her eyes received no ray of light. 




58 Poetry 



THE MIMIC HARLEQUIN. 

" I'll make believe^ and fancy something strange : 
I will suppose I have the power to change 
And make all things unlike to what they were, 
To jump through windows and fly through the air, 
And quite confound all places and all times. 
Like harlequins we see in pantomimes. 
These thread-papers my wooden sword must be. 
Nothing more like one I at present see. 
And now all round this drawing-room I'll range, 
And every thing I look at I will change. 
Here's Mopsa, our old cat, shall be a bird; 
To a Poll parrot she is now transferred. 
Here's mamma's work-bag, now I will engage 
To whisk this little bag into a cage; 
And now my pretty parrot, get you in it. 
Another change I'll show you in a minute." 

" O fie, you naughty child, what have you done ? 
There never was so mischievous a son. 
You've put the cat among my work, and torn 
A fine laced cap that I but once have worn." 



for Children. 59 



WRITTEN IN THE FIRST LEAF OF A 
CHILD'S MEMORANDUM-BOOK. 

My neat and pretty book, when I thy small lines see 
They seem for any use to be unfit for me. 
My writing, all misshaped, uneven as my mind, 
Within this narrow space can hardly be confined. 
Yet I will strive to make my hand less awkward look; 
I would not willingly disgrace thee, my neat book. 
The finest pens I'll use, and wondrous pains I'll take. 
And I these perfect lines my monitors will make, 
And every day I will set down in order due 
How that day wasted is; and should there be a few 
At the year's end that show more goodly to the sight. 
If haply here I find some days not wasted quite, 
If a small portion of them I have passed aright, 
Then shall I think the year not wholly was misspent, 
And that my Diary has been by some good angel sent. 



6o Poetry 



MEMORY. 

" For gold could Memory be bought, 
What treasures would she not be worth; 

If from afar she could be brought, 
I'd travel for her through the earth ! " 

This exclamation once was made 
By one who had obtained the name 

Of young forgetful Adelaide : 

And while she spoke, lo ! Memory came. 



If Memory indeed it were, 

Or such it only feigned to be- — 

A female figure came to her, 

Who said, " My name is Memory : 

" Gold purchases in me no share, 
Nor do I dwell in distant land; 

Study, and thought, and watchful care, 
In every place may me command. 



for Children. 6i 

" I am not lightly to be won ; 

A visit only now I make : 
And much must by yourself be done, 

Ere me you for an inmate take. 

"The only substitute for me 

Was ever found, is called a pen : 
The frequent use of that will be 

The way to make me come again." 



62 Poetiy 



THE REPROOF. 

Mamma heard me with scorn and pride 

A wretched beggar-boy deride. 

" Do you not know," said I, " how mean 

It is to be thus begging seen? 

If for a week I were not fed, 

I'm sure I would not beg my bread." 

And then away she saw me stalk 

With a most self-important walk. 

But meeting her upon the stairs, 

All these my consequential airs 

Were changed to an entreating look. 

" Give me," said I, " the pocket-book, 

Mamma, you promised I should have." 

The pocket-book to me she gave; 

After reproof and counsel sage 

She bade me write in the first page 

This naughty action all in rhyme ; 

No food to have until the time. 

In writing fair and neatly worded, 

The unfeehng fact I had recorded. 



for Childi^en, 6^^ 

Slow I compose and slow I write; 
And now I feel keen hunger bite. 
My mother's pardon I entreat, 
And beg she'll give me food to eat. 
Dry bread would be received with joy, 
By her repentant beggar-boy. 



64 Poetry 



THE TWO BEES. 

But a few words could William say, 
And those few could not speak plain, 

Yet thought he was a man one day; 
Never saw I boy so vain. 

From what could vanity proceed 

In such a little lisping lad? 
Or was it vanity indeed? 

Or was he only very glad? 

For he without his maid may go 
To the heath with elder boys, 

And pluck ripe berries where they grow: 
Well may William then rejoice. 

Be careful of your little charge; 

Elder boys, let him not rove; 
The heath is wide, the heath is large, 

From your sight he must not move. 



for Children. 65 

But rove he did: they had not been 

One short hour the heath upon, 
When he was nowhere to be seen; 

" Where," said they, " is Wilham gone ? " 



Mind not the elder boys' distress; 

Let them run, and let them fly. 
Their own neglect and giddiness 

They are justly suffering by. 



William his litde basket filled 
With his berries ripe and red; 

Then, naughty boy, two bees he killed. 
Under foot he stamped them dead. 



William had coursed them o'er the heath, 
After them his steps did wander; 

When he was nearly out of breath, 
The last bee his foot was under. 



A cruel triumph which did not 
Last but for a moment's space 

For now he finds that he has got 
Out of sight of every face. 



66 Poetry 

What are the berries now to him? 

What the bees which he has slain ? 
Fear now possesses every hmb, 

He cannot trace his steps again. 



The poor bees Wilham had affrighted 
In more terror did not haste 

Than he from bush to bush, benighted 
And alone amid the waste. 



Late in the night the child was found: 
He who these two bees had crushed 

Was lying on the cold damp ground, 
Sleep had then his sorrows hushed. 



A fever followed from the fright, 
And from sleeping in the dew; 

He many a day and many a night 
Suffered ere he better grew. 



His aching limbs while sick he lay 

Made him learn the crushed bees' pain; 

Oft would he to his mother say, 
" I ne'er will kill a bee again." 



for Children, 6y 



THE JOURNEY FROM SCHOOL AND 
TO SCHOOL. 

O WHAT a joyous, joyous day 

Is that on which we come 
At the recess from school away, 

Each lad to his own home! 



What though the coach is crammed full 

The weather very warm; 
Think you a boy of us is dull, 

Or feels the slightest harm? 

The dust and sun is life and fun; 

The hot and sultry weather 
A higher zest gives every breast, 

Thus jumbled all together. 

Sometimes we laugh aloud, aloud. 

Sometimes huzzah, huzzah. 
Who is so buoyant, free, and proud 

As we home travellers are ? 



68 Poetry 

But sad, but sad is every lad 
That day on which we come, 

That last last day on which away 
We all come from our home. 



The coach too full is found to be; 

Why is it crammed thus ? 
Now every one can plainly see 

There's not half room for us. 



Soon we exclaim, O shame, O shame, 
This hot and sultry weather, 

Who but our master is to blame 
Who packed us thus together! 



Now dust and sun does every one 

Most terribly annoy; 
Complaints begun, soon every one 

Elbows his neighbor boy. 



Not now the joyous laugh goes round, 
We shout not now huzzah; 

A sadder group may not be found 
Than we returning are. 



for Childre7i, 69 



THE ORANGE. 

The month was June, the day was hot, 

And Phihp had an orange got, 

The fruit was fragrant, tempting, bright, 

Refreshing to the smell and sight; 

Not of that puny size which calls 

Poor customers to common stalls, 

But large and massy, full of juice, 

As any Lima can produce. 

The liquor would, if squeezed out. 

Have filled a tumbler — thereabout. 

The happy boy, with greedy eyes. 

Surveys and re-surveys his prize. 

He turns it round, and longs to drain, 

And with the juice his lips to stain, 

His throat and lips were parched with heat; 

The orange seemed to cry. Come eat, 

He from his pocket draws a knife — 

When in his thoughts there rose a strife. 

Which folks experience when they wish 

Yet scruple to begin a dish. 



7o Poetry 

And by their hesitation own 
It is too good to eat alone. 
But appetite o'er indecision 
Prevails, and Philip makes incision. 



The melting fruit in quarters came, — 

Just then there passed by a dame. 

One of the poorer sort she seemed. 

As by her garb you would have deemed, — 

Who in her toil-worn arms did hold 

A sickly infant ten months old; 

That from a fever, caught in spring. 

Was slowly then recovering. 

The child, attracted by the view 

Of that fair orange, feebly threw 

A languid look — perhaps the smell 

Convinced it that there sure must dwell 

A corresponding sweetness there. 

Where lodged a scent so good and rare— 

Perhaps the smell the fruit did give 

Felt healing and restorative — 

For never had the child been graced 

To know such dainties by their taste. 



When Philip saw the infant crave, 
He straightway to the mother gave 



for. Children. 



71 



His quartered orange; nor would stay 
To hear her thanks, but tripped away. 
Then to the next dear spring he ran 
To quench his drought, a happy man ! 



']2 Poetry 



THE YOUNG LETTER WRITER. 

Dear Sir, Dear Madam, or Dear F^iefid, 
With ease are written at the top; 

When those two happy words are penned, 
A youthful writer oft will stop, 



And bite his pen, and lift his eyes 
As if he thinks to find in air 

The wished-for following words, or tries 
To fix his thoughts by fixed stare. 



But haply all in vain — the next 
Two words may be so long before 

They'll come, the writer, sore perplext, 
Gives in despair the matter o'er; 



And when maturer age he sees 
With ready pen so swift inditing, 

With envy he beholds the ease 
Of long-accustomed letter-writing. 



for Childreii. J2> 

Courage, young friend ; the time may be 

When you attain maturer age, 
Some young as you are now may see 

You with Hke ease glide down a page. 



Even then when you, to years a debtor, 
In varied phrase your meanings wrap, 

The welcomest words in all your letter 
May be those two kind words at top. 



74 Poetry 



THE THREE FRIENDS. 

Three young girls in friendship met, — 

Mary, Martha, Margaret, 

Margaret was tall and fair, 

Martha shorter by a hair; 

If the first excelled in feature, 

The other's grace and ease were greater; 

Mary, though to rival loth, 

In their best gifts equalled both. 

They a due proportion kept; 

Martha mourned if Margaret wept; 

Margaret joyed when any good 

She of Martha understood; 

And in sympathy for either 

Mary was outdone by neither. 

Thus far, for a happy space. 

All three ran an even race, 

A most constant friendship proving, 

Equally beloved and loving; 



for Childreit. 75 

All their wishes, joys, the same ; 
Sisters only not in name. 

Fortune upon each one smiled, 
As upon a favorite child; 
Well to do and well to see 
Were the parents of all three; 
Till on Martha's father crosses 
Brought a flood of worldly losses, 
And his fortunes rich and great 
Changed at once to low estate; 
Under which o'erwhelming blow 
Martha's mother was laid low; 
She a hapless orphan left, 
Of maternal care bereft. 
Trouble following trouble fast, 
Lay in a sick bed at last. 

In the depth of her affliction 
Martha now received conviction. 
That a true and faithful friend 
Can the surest comfort lend. 
Night and day, with friendship tried. 
Ever constant by her side 
Was her gentle Mary found, 
With a love that knew no bound; 
And the solace she imparted 
Saved her dying broken-hearted. 



76 Poetry 



In this scene of earthly things 
There's no good unmixed springs. 
That which had to Martha proved 
A sweet consolation, moved 
Different feelings of regret 
In the mind of Margaret. 
She, whose love was not less dear, 
Nor affection less sincere 
To her friend, was, by occasion 
Of more distant habitation. 
Fewer visits forced to pay her, 
When no other cause did stay her; 
And her Mary hving nearer, 
Margaret began to fear her, 
Lest her visits day by day 
Martha's heart should steal away. 
That whole heart she ill could spare her 
Where till now she'd been a sharer. 
From this cause with grief she pined, 
Till at length her health declined. 
All her cheerful spirits flew, 
Fast as Martha gathered new; 
And lier sickness waxed sore, 
Just when Martha felt no more. 



Mary, who had quick suspicion 
Of her altered friend's condition, 



for CJiildi'en. 77 

Seeing Martha's convalescence 
Less demanded now her presence, 
With a goodness built on reason, 
Changed her measures with the season; 
Turned her steps from Martha's door. 
Went where she was wanted more; 
All her care and thoughts were set 
Now to tend on Margaret. 
Mary living 'twixt the two. 
From her home could oftener go, 
Either of her friends to see. 
Than they could together be. 

Truth explained is to suspicion 
Evermore the best physician. 
Soon her visits had the effect; 
All that Margaret did suspect. 
From her fancy vanished clean; 
She was soon what she had been, 
And the color she did lack 
To her faded cheek came back. 
Wounds which love had made her feel, 
Love alone had power to heal. 

Martha, who the frequent visit 
Now had lost, and sore did miss it, 
With impatience waxed cross. 
Counted Margaret's gain her loss : 



78 Poetry 



All that Mary did confer 

On her friend, thought due to her. 

In her girlish bosom rise 

Little foolish jealousies, 

Which into such rancor wrought, 

She one day for Margaret sought; 

Finding her by chance alone, 

She began, with reasons shown. 

To insinuate a fear 

Whether Mary was sincere; 

Wished that Margaret would take heed 

Whence her actions did proceed; 

For herself, she'd long been minded 

Not with outsides to be blinded; 

All that pity and compassion. 

She beheved was affectation; 

In her heart she doubted whether 

Mary cared a pin for either; 

She could keep whole weeks at distance. 

And not know of their existence, 

While all things remained the same; 

But, when some misfortune came. 

Then she made a great parade 

Of her sympathy and aid, — 

Not that she did really grieve. 

It was only make-believe j 

And she cared for nothing, so 

She might her fine feelings show. 



for Children. 79 

And get credit, on her part, 
For a soft and tender heart. 

With such speeches, smoothly made, 
She found methods to persuade 
Margaret (who, being sore 
From the doubts she felt before, 
Was prepared for mistrust) 
To beheve her reasons just; 
Quite destroyed that comfort glad, 
Which in Mary late she had; 
Made her, in experience' spite, 
Think her friend a hypocrite. 
And resolve, with cruel scoff. 
To renounce and cast her off. 

See how good turns are rewarded! 
She of both is now discarded, 
Who to both had been so late 
Their support in low estate, 
All their comfort, and their stay — 
Now of both is cast away. 
But the league her presence cherished. 
Losing its best prop, soon perished; 
She, that was a link to either, 
To keep them and it together, 
Being gone, the two (no wonder) 
That were left, soon fell asunder; 



8o Poetry 



Some civilities were kept, 
But the heart of friendship slept; 
Love with hollow forms was fed, 
But the life of love lay dead : 
A cold intercourse they held 
After Mary was expelled. 



Two long years did intervene 
Since they'd either of them seen, 
Or, by letter, any word 
Of their old companion heard. 
When, upon a day, once walking. 
Of indifferent matters talking. 
They a female figure met. — 
Martha said to Margaret, 
'' That young maid in face does carry 
A resemblance strong of Mary." 
Margaret, at nearer sight, 
Owned her observation right; 
But they did not far proceed 
Ere they knew 'twas she indeed. 
She — but, ah! how changed they view her 
From that person which they knew her! 
Her fine face disease had scarred, 
And its matchless beauty marred : 
But enough was left to trace 
Mary's sweetness — Mary's grace. 



I 



for Children. gi 

When her eye did first behold them 

How they blushed l~but when she told them 

How on a sick bed she lay 

Months, while they had kept away, 

And had no inquiries made 

If she were ahve or dead; — 

How, for want of a true friend, 

She was brought near to her end, 

And was like so to have died, 

With no friend at her bedside; 

How the constant irritation, 

Caused by fruitless expectation 

Of their coming, had extended 

The illness, when she might have mended; 

Then, O then, how did reflection 

Come on them with recollection] 

All that she had done for them. 

How it did their fault condemn'] 



But sweet Mary, still the same. 
Kindly eased them of their shame* 
Spoke to them with accents bland,' 
Took them friendly by the hand; 
Bound them both with promise fast 
Not to speak of troubles past; 
Made them on the spot declare 
A new league of friendship there; 



82 



Poetry 



Which, without a word of strife, 
Lasted thenceforth long as Hfe. 
Martha now and Margaret 
Strove who most should pay the debt 
Which they owed her, nor did vary 
Ever after from their Mary. 



for Children. g^ 



ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

I HAVE taught your young lips the good words to say over, 
Which form the petition we call the Lord's Prayer, 

And now let me help my dear child to discover 
The meaning of all the good words that are there. 

"Our Father,"— the same appellation is given 
To a parent on earth, and the Parent of all~ 

O gracious permission ! the God that's in heaven 
Allows his poor creatures him Father to call. 

To "hallow his name," is to think with devotion 
Of it, and with reverence mention the same; 

Though you are so young, you should strive for some notion 
Of the awe we should feel at the Holy One's name. 

His " will done on earth, as it is done in heaven," 
Is a wish and a hope we are suffered to breathe 

That such grace and favor to us may be given. 

Like good angels on high we may live here beneath. 



g4 Poetry 

" Our daily bread give us," your young apprehension 
May well understand is to pray for our food; 

Although we ask bread, and no other thing mention, 
God's bounty gives all things sufficient and good. 

You pray that your " trespasses may be forgiven, 
As you forgive those that are done unto you." 

Before this you say to the God that's in heaven, 
Consider the words which you speak. Are they true ? 

If any one has in the past time offended 
Us angry creatures who soon take offence, 

These words in the prayer are surely intended 

To soften our minds, and expel wrath from thence. 

We pray that " temptations may never assail us," 
And "deliverance beg from all evil" we find: 

But we never can hope that our prayer will avail us. 
If we strive not to banish ill thoughts from our mmd. 

" For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, 
For ever and ever:" these titles are meant 

To express God's dominion and majesty o'er ye : 

And "Amen" to the sense of the whole gives assent. 



for Childi^eit. gr 



"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, AND FORBID 
THEM NOT, TO COME UNTO ME." 

To Jesus our Savior some parents presented 
Their children— what fears and what hopes they must 
feel! 

When this the disciples would fain have prevented, 
Our Savior reproved their unseasonable zeal. 

Not only free leave to come to him was given 

But " of such " were the blessed words Christ our 
Lord spake, 

" Of such is composed the kingdom of heaven : " 
The disciples, abashed, perceived their mistake. 

With joy then the parents their children brought nigher 
And earnestly begged that his hands he would lay 

On their heads; and they made a petition still higher 
That he for a blessing upon them would pray. 

O happy young children, thus brought to adore him, 
To kneel at his feet, and look up in his face • 

JNo doubt now in heaven they still are before him 
Children still of his love, and enjoying his grace 



86 



Poetry 



For being so blest as to come to our Savior, 
How deep in their innocent hearts it must sink! 

'Twas a visit divine; a most holy behavior 

Must flow from that spring of which then they did drink. 




for Children. 87 



THE MAGPIE'S NEST, OR A LESSON 
OF DOCILITY. 



When the arts in their infancy were, 

In a fable of old 'tis exprest, 
A wise magpie constructed that rare 

Little house for young birds, called a nest. 

This was talked of the whole country round, 
You might hear it on every bough sung, 

" Now no longer upon the rough ground 
Will fond mothers brood over their young. 

" For the magpie with exquisite skill 
Has invented a moss-covered cell, 

Within which a whole family will 
In the utmost security dwell." 

To her mate did each female bird say, 
" Let us fly to the magpie, my dear ; 

If she will but teach us the way, 
A nest we will build us up here. 



Poetry 

" It's a thing that's close arched over head^ 
With a hole made to creep out and in; 

We, my bird, might make just such a bed, 
If we only knew how to begin." 



To the magpie soon every bird went. 
And in modest terms made their request, 

That she would be pleased to consent 
To teach them to build up a nest. 



She replied, " I will show you the way, 
So observe every thing that I do. 

First two sticks cross each other I lay " — 
" To be sure," said the crow ; " why, I knew 



"It must be begun with two sticks. 

And I thought that they crossed should be." 

Said the pie, "Then some straw and moss mix, 
In the way you now see done by me." 



" O yes, certainly," said the jackdaw, 

"That must follow of course, I have thought; 

Though I never before building saw, 
I guessed that without being taught." 



fo7^ C/itlcii^en, 89 

" More moss, straw, and feathers, I place, 
In this manner," continued the pie. 

"Yes, no doubt, madam, that is the case; 
Though no builder myseh^, even I," 



Said the starling, " conjectured 'twas so ; 

It must of necessity follow : 
For more moss, straw, and feathers, I know, 

It requires,, to be soft, round, and hollow." 



Whatever she taught them beside. 
In his turn every bird of them said, 

Though the nest-making art he ne'er tried, 
He had just such a thought in his head. 



Still the pie went on showing her art, 
Till a nest she had built up half way; 

She no more of her skill would impart, 
But in anger went fluttering away. 



And this speech in their hearing she made, 
As she perched o'er their heads on a tree, 

" If ye all were well skilled in my trade, 
Pray, why came ye to learn it of me ? " — 



90 Poetry 

When a scholar is willing to learn, 

He with silent submission should hear. 

Too late they their folly discern; 
The effect to this day does appear; 



For whenever a pie's nest you see, 
Her charming warm canopy view, 

All birds' nests but hers seem to be 
A magpie's nest just cut in two. 



for Children, 91 



THE BOY AND THE SKYLARK. 



"A WICKED action fear to do, 

When you are by yourself; for though 

You think you can conceal it, 
A little bird that's in the air 
The hidden trespass shall declare, 

And openly reveal it." 

Richard this saying oft had heard, 
Until the sight of any bird 

Would set his heart a-quaking; 
He saw a host of winged spies 
For ever o'er him in the skies, 

Note of his actions taking. 

This pious precept, while it stood 
In his remembrance, kept him good 

When nobody was by him; 
For though no human eye was near. 
Yet Richard still did wisely fear 

The Httle bird should spy him. 



92 Poetry 

But best resolves will sometimes sleep; 
Poor frailty will not always keep 

From that which is forbidden; 
And Richard, one day, left alone, 
Laid hands' on something not his own, 

And hoped the theft was hidden. 

His conscience slept a day or two, 
As it is very apt to do 

When we with pains suppress it : 
And though at times a slight remorse 
Would raise a pang, it had not force 

To make him yet confess it. 

When on a day, as he abroad 
Walked by his mother, in their road 

He heard a skylark singing; 
Smit with the sound, a flood of tears 
Proclaimed the superstitious fears 

His inmost bosom wringing. 

His mother, wondering, saw him cry, 
And fondly asked the reason why; 

'1 iiv.n Richard made confession, 
And said, he feared the little bird 
He singing in the air had heard 

Was telling his transgression. 



for Childre7t, 93 

The words which Richard spoke below, 
As sounds by nature upwards go, 

Were to the skylark carried; 
The airy traveller with surprise 
To hear his sayings, in the skies 

On his mid journey tarried. 

His anger then the bird exprest: 
" Sure, since the day I left the nest, 

I ne'er heard folly uttered 
So fit to move a skylark's mirth, 
As what this little son of earth 

Hath in his grossness muttered. 

" Dull fool ! to think we sons of air 
On man's low actions waste a care, 

His virtues or his vices; . 
Or soaring on the summer gales. 
That we should stoop to carry tales 

Of him or his devices ! 

" Our songs are all of the dehghts 
We find in our wild airy flights, 

And heavenly exaltation; 
The earth you mortals have at heart 
Is all too gross to have a part 

In skylark's conversation. 



94 Poetry 

" Unless it be in what green field 
Or meadow we our nest may build, 

Midst flowering broom, or heather; 
From whence our new-fledged oflspring may 
With least obstruction wing their way 

Up to the walks of ether. 

" Mistaken fool ! man needs not us 
His secret merits to discuss. 

Or spy out his transgression; 
When once he feels his conscience stirred, 
That voice within him is the bird 

That moves him to confession," 




for Children. 95 



THE MEN AND WOMEN, AND 
THE MONKEYS. 



When beasts by words their meanings could declare, 
Some well-dressed men and women did repair 
To gaze upon two monkeys at a fair : 

And one who was the spokesman in the place 
Said, in their countenance you might plainly trace 
The likeness of a withered old man's face. 

His observation none impeached or blamed, 
But every man and woman when 'twas named 
Drew in the head, or slunk away ashamed. 

One monkey, who had more pride than the other. 
His infinite chagrin could scarcely smother; 
But Pug the wiser said unto his brother: 

" The slights and coolness of this human nation 
Should give a sensible ape no mortification : 
'Tis thus they always serve a poor relation." 



g6 Poetry 



LOVE, DEATH, AND REPUTATION. 



Once on a time, Love, Death, and Reputation, 
Three travellers, a tour together went; 
And, after many a long perambulation, 
Agreed to part by mutual consent. 

Death said : " My fellow tourists, I am going 
To seek for harvests in the embattled plain; 
Where drums are beating, and loud trumpets blowing. 
There you'll be sure to meet with me again." 

Love said : " My friends, I mean to spend my leisure 
With some young couple, fresh in Hymen's bands; 
Or 'miongst relations, who in equal measure 
Have had bequeathed to them house or lands." 

But Reputation said : " If once we sever, 
Our chance of future meeting is but vain : 
Who parts from me, must look to part for ever, 
For Reputation lost comes not again P 



for Children, 97 



THE SPARROW AND THE HEN. 

A Sparrow, when sparrows like parrots could speak, 
Addressed an old hen who could talk like a jay: 

Said he, " It's unjust that we sparrows must seek 
Our food, when your family's fed every day. 

" Were you like the peacock, that elegant bird. 

The sight of whose plumage her master may please, 

I then should not wonder that you are preferred 

To the yard, where in affluence you Hve at your ease. 

" I affect no great style, am not costly in feathers, 
A good honest brown I find most to my liking, 

It always looks neat, and is fit for all weathers. 
But I think your grey mixture is not very striking. 

"We know that the bird from the isles of Canary 
Is fed, foreign airs to sing in a fine cage; 

But your note from a cackle so seldom does vary, 
The fancy of man it cannot much engage. 



98 Poetry 

" My chirp to a song sure approaches much nearer, 
Nay, the nightingale tells me I sing not amiss; 

If voice were in question I ought to be dearer; 
But the owl he assures me there's nothing in this. 

" Nor is your proneness to domestication, 

For he dwells in man's barn, and I build in man's thatch, 
As we say to each other — but to our vexation, 

O'er your safety alone man keeps diligent watch," 

" Have you e'er learned to read ? " said the hen to the 
sparrow. 

" No, madam," he answered, " I can't say I have." 
"Then that is the reason your sight is so narrow," 

The old hen replied, with a look very grave. 

"Mrs. Glasse in a Treatise — I wish you could read — 
Our importance has shown, and has proved to us why 

Man shields us and feeds us : of us he has need 
Even before we are born, even after we die." 



for Children. 99 



WHICH IS THE FAVORITE. 

Brothers and sisters I have many: 
Though I know there is not any 
Of them but I love, yet I 
Will just name them all; and try 
If there be one a Httle more 
Loved by me than all the rest. 
Yes; I do think, that I love best 
My brother Henry, because he 
Has always been most fond of me. 
. Yet, to be sure, there's Isabel ; 
I think I love her quite as well. 
And, I assure you, httle Ann, 
No brother nor no sister can 
Be more dear to me than she. 
Only I must say, Emily, 
Being the eldest, it's right her 
To all the rest I should prefer. 
Yet after all I've said, suppose 
My greatest favorite should be Rose. 
No, John and Paul are both more dear 
To me than Rose, that's always here. 



lOO Poetry 

While they are half the year at school; 

And yet that neither is no rule. 

I've named them all, there's only seven; 

I find my love to all so even, 

To every sister, every brother, 

I love not one more than another. 



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THE BEGGAR-MAN. 

Abject, stooping, old, and wan, 
See yon wretched beggar-man: 
Once a father's hopeful heir. 
Once a mother's tender care. 
When too young to understand 
He but scorched his little hand, 
By the candle's flaming light 
Attracted, dancing, spiral, bright. 
Clasping fond her darling round, 
A thousand kisses healed the wound. 
Now abject, stooping, old, and wan, 
No mother tends the beggar-man. 

Then nought too good for him to wear, 
With cherub face and flaxen hair, 
In fancy's choicest gauds arrayed, 
Cap of lace with rose to aid. 
Milk-white hat and feather blue. 
Shoes of red, and coral too 
With silver bells to please his ear, 
And charm the frequent ready tear. 



I02 Poetry 

Now abject, stooping, old, and wan, 
Neglected is the beggar-man. 

See the boy advance in age. 
And learning spreads her useful page; 
In vain ! for giddy pleasure calls, 
And shows the marbles, tops, and balls. 
What's learning to the charms of play ? 
The indulgent tutor must give v/ay, 
A heedless, wilful dunce, and wild. 
The parents' fondness spoiled the child; 
The youth in vagrant courses ran; 
Now abject, stooping, old, and wan. 
Their fondling is the beggar-man. 



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CHOOSING A PROFESSION. 

A Creole boy from the West Indies brought, 

To be in European learning taught, 

Some years before to Westminster he went, 

To a preparatory school was sent. 

When from his artless tale the mistress found, 

The child had not one friend on English ground, 

She, even as if she his own mother were, 

Made the dark Indian her peculiar care. 

Oft on her favorite's future lot she thought; 

To know the bent of his young mind she sought, 

For much the kind preceptress wished to find 

To what profession he was most inclined. 

That where his genius led they might him train; 

For nature's kindly bent she held not vain. 

But vain her efforts to explore his will; 

The frequent question he evaded still : 

Till on a day at length he to her came, 

Joy sparkling in his eyes; and said, the same 

Trade he would be those boys of color were, 

Who danced so happy in the open air. 



I04 



Poetjy 



It was a troop of chimney-sweeping boys, 
With wooden music and obstreperous noise, 
In tarnished finery and grotesque array, 
Were dancing in the street the first of May. 



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BREAKFAST. 

A Dinner party^ coffee, tea, 

Sandwich, or supper, all may be 

In their way pleasant. But to me 

Not one of these deserves the praise 

That welcomer of new-born days, 

A breakfast, merits; ever giving 

Cheerful notice we are living 

Another day refreshed by sleep, 

When its festival we keep. 

Now although I would not slight 

Those kindly words we use, " Good-night," 

Yet parting words are words of sorrow. 

And may not vie with sweet " Good-morrow," 

With which again our friends we' greet, 

When in the breakfast-room we meet. 

At the social table round, 

Listening to the hvely sound 

Of those notes which never tire, 

Of urn, or kettle on the fire, 

Sleepy Robert never hears 

Or urn or kettle; he appears 



io6 Poetry 

When all have finished, one by one 
Dropping off, and breakfast done. 
Yet has he too his own pleasure. 
His breakfast hour's his hour of leisure; 
And, left alone, he reads or muses, 
Or else in idle mood he uses 
To sit and watch the venturous fly, 
Where the sugar's piled high, 
Clambering o'er the lumps so white, 
Rocky cliffs of sweet delight. 




for Children. 107 



WEEDING. 

As BUSY Aurelia, 'tvvixt work and 'twixt play, 

Was laboring industriously hard 
To cull the vile weeds from the flowerets away, 

Which grew in her father's courtyard; 



In her juvenile anger, wherever she found, 
She plucked, and she pulled, and she tore; 

The poor passive sufferers bestrewed all the ground; 
Not a weed of them all she forbore. 



At length 'twas her chance on some nettles to light 
(Things, till then, she had scarcely heard named); 

The vulgar intruders called forth all her spite; 
In a transport of rage she exclaimed. 



" Shall briars so unsightly and worthless as those 
Their great sprawling leaves thus presume 

To mix with the pink, the jonquil, and the rose, 
And take up a flower's sweet room ? " 



io8 Poetry 

On the odious offenders enraged she flew; 

But she presently found to her cost 
A tinghng unlooked for, a pam that was new, 

And rage was in agony lost. 



To her father she hastily fled for relief, 
And told him her pain and her smart; 

With kindly caresses he soothed her grief, 
Then smiling he took the weed's part. 



"The world, my Aureha, this garden of ours 

Resembles : too apt we're to deem 
In the world's larger garden ourselves as the flowers, 

And the poor but as weeds to esteem. 



" But them if we rate, or with rudeness repel, 
Though some will be passive enough. 

From others who 're more independent 'tis well 
If we meet not stinging rebuff." 



for Children, 109 



PARENTAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

A child's a plaything for an hour; 

Its pretty tricks we try 
For that or for a longer space; 

Then tire, and lay it by. 



But I knew one that to itself 

All seasons could control; 
That would have mocked the sense of pain 

Out of a grieved soul. 



Thou straggler into loving arms, 
Young climber up of knees, 

When I forget thy thousand ways, 
Then life and all shall cease. 



no Poetry 



THE TWO BOYS. 

I saw a boy with eager eye 

Open a book upon a stall, 

And read as he'd devoured it all: 

Which when the stall-man did espy, 

Soon to the boy I heard him call, 

" You sir, you never buy a book, 

Therefore in one you shall not look." 

The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh 

He wished he never had been taught to read, 

Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need. 

Of sufferings the poor have many. 

Which never can the rich annoy. 

I soon perceived another boy 

Who looked as if he'd not had any 

Food for that day at least, enjoy 

The sight of cold meat in a tavern-larder. 

This boy's case, thought I, is surely harder. 

Thus hungry longing, thus without a penny. 

Beholding choice of dainty dressed meat : 

No wonder if he wished he ne'er had learned to eat. 



for Children. 1 1 1 



THE OFFER. 

"Tell me, would you rather be 
Changed by a fairy to the fine 
Young orphan heiress Geraldine, 

Or still be Emily ? 



" Consider, ere you answer me, 
How many blessings are procured 
By riches, and how much endured 

By chilling poverty." 



After a pause, said Emily: 
" In the words orphan heiress I 
Find many a solid reason why 

I would not changed be. 



" What though I live in poverty. 
And have of sisters eight — so many, 
That few indulgencies, if any. 

Fall to the share of me : 



112 Poetry 

"Think you that for wealth I'd be 
Of even the least of them bereft, 
Or lose my parent, and be left 

An orphaned Emily ? 



"Still should I be Emily, 
Although I looked like Geraldine; 
I feel within this heart of mine 

No change could worked be." 




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THE SISTER'S EXPOSTULATION ON THE 
BROTHER'S LEARNING LATIN. 

Shut these odious books up, brother; 

They have made you quite another 

Thing from what you used to be : 

Once you hked to play with me, 

Now you leave me all alone. 

And are so conceited grown 

With your Latin, you'll scarce look 

Upon any English book. 

We had used on winter eves 

To con over Shakespeare's leaves. 

Or on Milton's harder sense 

Exercise our diligence. 

And you would explain with ease 

The obscurer passages; 

Find me out the prettiest places. 

The poetic turns and graces. 

Which, alas ! now you are gone, 

I must puzzle out alone; 

And oft miss the meaning quite. 

Wanting you to set me right. 

All this comes since you've been under 



114 Poetry 

Your new master. I much wonder 
What great charm it is you see 
In those words, musa, muscB ; 
Or in what do they excel 
Our word song. It sounds as well 
To my fancy as the other. 
Now believe me, dearest brother, 
I would give my finest frock 
And my cabinet and stock 
Of new playthings, every toy, 
I would give them all with joy, 
Could I you returning see 
Back to English and to me. 



for Children. 1 1 5 



THE BROTHER'S REPLY. 

Sister, fie for shame, no more ! 
Give this ignorant babble o'er, 
Nor, with Httle female pride, 
Things above your sense deride. 
Why this fooHsh underrating 
Of my first attempts at Latin ? 
Know you not each thing we prize 
Does from small beginnings rise? 
'Twas the same thing with your writing 
Which you now take such delight in. 
First you learnt the down-stroke line, 
Then the hair-stroke thin and fine, 
Then a curve and then a better. 
Till you came to form a letter; 
Then a new task was begun, 
How to join them two in one; 
Till you got (these first steps pass'd) 
To your fine text-hand at last. 
So, though I at first commence 
With the humble accidence. 
And my study's course affords 
Little else as yet but words, 



1 1 6 Poetry 

I shall venture in a while 

At construction, grammar, style, 

Learn my syntax, and proceed 

Classic authors next to read. 

Such as wiser, better, make us, 

Sallust, Phaedrus, Ovid, Flaccus: 

All the poets with their wit, 

All the grave historians writ, 

Who the lives and actions show 

Of men famous long ago; 

Even their very sayings giving 

In the tongue they used when living. 



Think not I shall do that wrong 
Either to my native tongue, 
English authors to despise. 
Or those books which you so prize; 
Though from them awhile I stray. 
By new studies call'd away. 
Them when next I take in hand, 
I shall better understand; 
For I've heard wise men declare 
Many words in English are 
From the Latin tongue derived. 
Of whose sense girls are deprived 
'Cause they do not Latin know. 
But if all your anger grow 



for Children. 117 

From this cause, that you suspect, 
By proceedings indirect, 
I would keep (as miser's pelf) 
All this learning to myself; 
Sister, to remove this doubt, 
Rather than we will fall out, 
(If our parents will agree) 
You shall Latin learn with me. 



1^^ 



1 1 8 Poetry 



NURSE GREEN. 

" Your prayers you have said, and you've wished good- 
night : 

What cause is there yet keeps my darhng awake ? 
This throb in your bosom proclaims some affright, 

Disturbs your composure. Can innocence quake? 



"Why thus do you chng to my neck, and enfold me; 

What fear unimparted your quiet devours ? " 
" O mother, there's reason — for Susan has told me, 

A dead body lies in the room next to ours." 



" I know it ; and, but for forgetfulness, dear, 

I meant you the coffin this day should have seen, 

And read the inscription, and told me the year 

And day of the death of your poor old Nurse Green.' 



" O not for the wealth of the world would I enter 
A chamber wherein a dead body lay hid. 

Lest somebody bolder than I am should venture 
To go near the coffin and lift up the lid." 



for Childreit. 119 

"And should they do so and the coffin uncover, 
The corpse underneath it will be no ill sight; 

This frame, when its animal functions are over, 
Has nothing of horror the living to fright. 



''To start at the dead is preposterous error, 
To shrink from a foe that can never contest; 

Shall that which is motionless move thee to terror; 
Or thou become restless, 'cause they are at rest? 



" To think harm of her our good feelings forbid us 
By whom when a babe you were dandled and fed; 

Who living so many good offices did us, 

I ne'er can persuade me would hurt us when dead. 



'' But if no endeavor your terrors can smother, 
If vainly against apprehensions you strive, 

Come, bury your fears in the arms of your mother; 
My darling, cling close to me, I am alive." 



1 20 Poetry 



GOOD TEMPER. 

In whatsoever place resides 

Good Temper, she o'er all presides; 

The most obdurate heart she guides. 

Even Anger yields unto her power, 
And sullen Spite forgets to lour, 
Or reconciled weeps a shower; 

Reserve she softens into Ease, 
Makes Fretfulness leave off to teaze. 
She Waywardness itself can please. 

Her handmaids they are not a few. 

Sincerity that's ever true, 

And Prompt Obedience always new, 

Urbanity that ever smiles. 

And Frankness that ne'er beguiles. 

And Firmness that is always ready 

To make young good-resolves more steady, 

The only safeguard of the giddy; 



for Childixn. 

And blushing Modesty, and sweet 

Humility in fashions neat; 

Yet still her train is incomplete, 

Unless meek Piety attend 

Good Temper as her surest friend, 

Abiding with her to the end. 



Poetry 



MODERATION IN DIET. 

The Drunkard's sin, excess in wine, 

Which reason drowns, and health destroys, 

As yet no failing is of thine, 

Dear Jim, strong drink's not given to boys. 



You from the cool fresh stream allay 
Those thirsts which sultry suns excite; 

When choak'd with dust or hot with play, 
A cup of water yields delight. 



To learn the faults of men grown up, 
Dear Jim, be wise and do not haste; 

But reverence still that temperate cup. 
And cherish long the blameless taste.' 



They'll come too soon. — But there's a vice, 
That shares the world's contempt no less; 

To be in eating over nice 

Or to court surfeits by excess. 



for Children, 123 

The first, as finical, avoid; 

The last is proper to a swine : 
By temperance meat is enjoy'd; 

Think of this maxim when you dine. 



Prefer with plain food to be fed. 

Rather than what are dainties styl'd; 

A sweet tooth in an infant's head 
Is pardon'd, not in a grown child. 



If parent, aunt, or liberal friend, 

With splendid shilling line your purse, 

Do not the same on sweetmeats spend, 
Nor appetite with pampering nurse. 



Go buy a book; a dainty eaten 
Is vanish'd, and no sweets remain; 

They who their minds with knowledge sweeten, 
The savor long as life retain. 



Purchase some toy; a horse of wood, 
A pasteboard ship; their structure scan; 

Their mimic uses understood 

The school-boy makes a kind of man. 



1 24 Poetry 

Go see some show; pictures or prints; 

Or beasts far brought from Indian land; 
Those foreign sights oft furnish hints 

That may the youthful mind expand. 



And something of your store impart, 
To feed the poor and hungry soul; 

What buys for you the needless tart, 
May purchase him the needful roll. 



for Children. 125 



INCORRECT SPEAKING. 

Incorrectness in your speech 
Carefully avoid, my Anna; 

Study well the sense of each 
Sentence, lest in any manner 

It misrepresent the truth; 

Veracity's the charm of youth. 



You will not, I know, tell Hes, 

If you know what you are speaking.- 

Truth is shy, and from us flies; 
Unless diligently seeking 

Into every word we pry, 

Falsehood will her place supply. 

Falsehood is not shy,— not she, — 
Ever ready to take place of 

Truth, too oft we Falsehood see. 
Or at least some latent trace of 

Falsehood, in the incorrect 

Words of those who Truth respect. 



126 Poetry 



CHARITY. 

Oh why your good deeds with such pride do you scan, 

And why that self-satisfied smile, 
At the shilling you gave to the poor working man. 

That lifted you over the stile ? 



'Tis not much ; all the bread that can with it be bought 

Will scarce give a morsel to each 
Of his eight hungry children :-— reflection and thought 

Should you more humility teach. 



Vainglory's a worm which the very best action 
Will taint, and its soundness eat thro'; 

But to give one's self airs for a small benefaction, 
Is folly and vanity too. 



The money perhaps by your father or mother 
Was furnished you but with that view; 

If so, you were only the steward of another, 
And the praise you usurp is their due. 



for Children, 127 

Perhaps every shilling you give in this way 
Is paid back with two by your friends; 

Then the bounty you so ostentatious display, 
Has Uttle and low selfish ends. 



But if every penny you gave were your own, 

And giving diminished your purse; 
By a child's slender means think how Httle is done, 

And how little for it you're the worse. 



You eat, and you drink; when you rise in the mom, 
You are clothed; you have health and content; 

And you never have known, from the day you were born. 
What hunger or nakedness meant. 



The most which your bounty from you can subtract 

Is an apple, a sweetmeat, a toy; 
For so easy a virtue, so trifling an act, 
. You are paid with an innocent joy. 



Give thy bread to the hungry, the thirsty thy cup ; 

Divide with th' afflicted thy lot: 
This can only be practis'd by persons grown up. 

Who've possessions which children have not. 



128 



Poetry 



Having two cloaks, give one (said our Lord) to the poor; 

In such bounty as that Hes the trial; 
But a child that gives half of its infantile store 

Has small praise, because small self-denial. 




for Children. 129 



MY BIRTHDAY. 

A DOZEN years since in this house what commotion, 
What bustle, what stir, and what joyful ado; 

Every soul in the family at my devotion. 

When into the world I came twelve years ago. 



I've been told by my friends (if they do not belie me) 
My promise was such as no parent would scorn j 

The wise and the aged who prophesied by me, . 
Augured nothing but good of me when I was bom. 



But vain are the hopes which are formed by a parent, 
Fallacious the marks which in infancy shine; 

My frail constitution soon made it apparent, 
I nourished within me the seeds of decline. 



On a sick bed I lay, through the flesh my bones started, 
■My grief- wasted frame to a skeleton fell; 

My physicians foreboding took leave and departed. 
And they wished me dead now, who wished me well. 



130 Poetry 

Life and soul were kept in by a mother's assistance, 
Who struggled with faith, and prevailed 'gainst despair; 

Like an angel she watched o'er the lamp of existence, 
And never would leave while a glimmer was there. 



By her care I'm alive now —but what retribution 
Can I for a life twice bestowed thus confer? 

Were I to be silent, each year's revolution 

Proclaims — each new birthday is owing to her. 



The chance-rooted tree that by waysides is planted. 
Where no friendly hand will watch o'er its young shoots, 

Has less blame if in autumn, when produce is wanted, 
Enriched by small culture it put forth small fruits. 



But that which with labor in hot-beds is reared, 
Secured by nice art from the dews and the rains 

Unsound at the root may with justice be feared, 
If it pay not with interest the tiller's hard pains. 



for Children, 131 



THE BEASTS IN THE TOWER. 

Within the precincts of this yard, 
Each in his narrow confines barred, 
Dwells every beast that can be found 
On Afric or on Indian ground. 
How different was the life they led 
In those wild haunts where they were bred. 
To this tame servitude and fear, 
Enslaved by man, they suffer here! 

In that uneasy close recess 
Couches a sleeping honess; 
That next den holds a bear; the next 
A wolf, by hunger ever vext; 
There, fiercer from the keeper's lashes 
His teeth the fell hyena gnashes ; 
That creature on whose back abound 
Black spots upon a yellow ground, 
A panther is, the fairest beast 
That haunteth in the spacious East. 
He underneath a fair outside 
Does cruelty and treachery hide. 



132 Poetiy 

That cat-like beast that to and fro 
Restless as fire does ever go, 
As if his courage did resent 
His limbs in such confinement pent, 
That should their prey in forests take, 
And make the Indian jungles quake, 
A tiger is. Observe how sleek 
And glossy smooth his coat : no streak 
On satin ever matched the pride 
Of that which marks his furry hide. 
How strong his muscles! he with ease 
Upon the tallest man could seize. 
In his large, mouth away could bear him, 
And into thousand pieces tear him : 
Yet cabined so securely here, 
The smallest infant need not fear. 



That lordly creature next to him 
A Hon is. Survey each limb. 
Observe the texture of his claws, 
The massy thickness of those jaws; 
His mane that sweeps the ground in length. 
Like Samson's locks, betokening strength. 
In force and swiftness he excels 
Each beast that in the forest dwells; 
The savage tribes him king confess 
Throughout the howling wilderness. 



for Children. 133 

Woe to the hapless neighborhood, 
When he is pressed by want of food ! 
Of man, or child, of bull, or horse. 
He makes his prey; such is his force. 
A waste behind him he creates. 
Whole villages depopulates. 
Yet here within appointed lines 
How small a grate his rage confines! 

This place methinks resembleth well 
The world itself in which we dwell. 
Perils and snares on every ground 
Like these wild beasts beset us round. 
But Providence their rage restrains, 
Our heavenly Keeper sets them chains; 
His goodness saveth every hour 
His darlings from the lion's power. 



134 Poetry 



THE CONFIDANT. 

Anna was always full of thought 

As if she'd many sorrows known, 
Yet mostly her full heart was fraught 

With troubles that were not her own; 
For the whole school to Anna used to tell 
Whatever small misfortunes unto them befell. 

And being so by all beloved, 

That all into her bosom poured 
Their dearest secrets, she was moved 

To pity all — her heart a hoard, 
Or storehouse, by this means became for all 
The sorrows can to girls of tender age befall. 

Though individually not much 

Distress throughout the school prevailed. 

Yet as she shared it all, 'twas such 
A weight of woe that her assailed. 

She lost her color, loathed her food, and grew 

So dull, that all their confidence from her withdrew. 



for Childi^en. 135 

Released from her daily care, 

No longer listening to complaint, 
She seems to breathe a different air. 

And health once more her cheek does paint. 
Still Anna loves her friends, but will not hear 
Again their list of grievances which cost so dear. 



136 Poetry 



THOUGHTLESS CRUELTY. 

There, Robert, you have killed that fly, 
And should you thousand ages try 
The life you've taken to supply, 
You could not do it. 

You surely must have been devoid 
Of thought and sense, to have destroyed 
A thing which no way you annoyed — 
You'll one day rue it. 

'Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say, 

That's born in April, dies in May; 

That does but just learn to display 

His wings one minute. 

And in the next is vanished quite : 
A bird devours it in his flight, 
Or come a cold blast in the night, 
There's no breath in it. 



for Children. 137 

The bird but seeks his proper food; 
And Providence, whose power endued 
That fly with hfe, when it thinks good, 
May justly take it. 



Eut you have no excuses for't; 
A Hfe by nature made so short, 
Less reason is that you for sport 
Should shorter make it. 



A fly a little thing you rate, 

But, Robert, do not estimate 
A creature's pain by small or great; 
The greatest being 

Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh, 
And these the smallest ones possess, 
Although their frame and structure less 
Escape our seeing. 



138 Poetry 



EYES. 

Lucy, what do you espy- 
In the cast in Jenny's eye 
That should you to laughter move? 
I far other feelings prove. 
Who on me she does advance 
Her good-natured countenance, 
And those eyes which in their way 
Saying much, so much would say, 
They to me no blemish seem, 
Or as none I them esteem; 
I their imperfection prize 
Above other clearer eyes. 

Eyes do not as jewels go 
By the brightness and the show, 
But the meanings which surround them, 
And the sweetness shines around them. 

Isabel's are black as jet, 
But she cannot that forget, 



for Child^xn. 139 

And the pains she takes to show them 
Robs them of the praise we owe them. 
Ann's, though blue, affected fall; 
Kate's are bright, and fierce withal; 
And the sparklers of her sister 
From ill-humor lose their lustre. 
Only Jenny's eyes we see, 
By their very plainness, free 
From the vices which do smother 
All the beauties of the other. 



140 Poetry 



PENNY PIECES. 

"I KEEP it, dear papa, within my glove." 
"You do — what sum then usually, my love, 
Is there deposited? I make no doubt. 
Some penny pieces you are not without." 

" O no, papa, they'd soil my glove, and be 
Quite odious things to carry. O no — see. 
This little bit of gold is surely all 
That I shall want; for I shall only call 
For a small purchase I shall make, papa. 
And a mere trifle I'm to buy mamma. 
Just to make out the change : so there's no need 
To carry penny pieces, sir, indeed." 

" O now I know then why a blind man said 
Unto a dog which this blind beggar led, — 
'Where'er you see some fine young ladies. Tray, 
Be sure you lead me quite another way. 
The poor man's friend fair ladies used to be; 
But now I find no tale of misery 
Will ever from their pockets draw a penny : ' 
The blind man did not see they wear not anyT 



for Children. 141 



THE RAINBOW. 

After the tempest in the sky 

How sweet yon rainbow to the eye ! 

Come, my Matilda, now while some 

Few drops of rain are yet to come, 

In this honeysuckle bower 

Safely sheltered from the shower, 

We may count the colors o'er. — 

Seven there are, there are no more; 

Each in each so finely blended, 

Where they begin, or where are ended. 

The finest eye can scarcely see. 

A fixed thing it seems to be; 

But, while we speak, see how it glides 

Away, and now observe it hides 

Half of its perfect arch — now we 

Scarce any part of it can see. 

What is color ? If I were 

A natural philosopher, 

I would tell you what does make 

This meteor every color take : 

But an unlearned eye may view 



142 Poetry 

Nature's rare sights, and love them too. 

Whenever I a rambow see, 

Each precious tint is dear to me; 

For every color I find there, 

Which flowers, which fields, which ladies wear: 

My favorite green, the grass's hue, 

And the fine deep violet-blue, 

And the pretty pale blue-bell, 

And the rose I love so well, 

All the wonderous variations 

Of the tulips, pinks, carnations. 

This woodbine here both flower and leaf. 

'Tis a truth that's past behef 

That every flower and every tree, 

And every living thing we see, 

Every face which we espy. 

Every cheek and every eye. 

In all their tints, in every shade, 

Are from the rainbow's colors made. 



for Children. 143 



THE FORCE OF HABIT. 

A LITTLE child, who had desired 
To go and see the park guns fired, 
Was taken by his maid that way 
Upon the next rejoicing day. 
Soon as the unexpected stroke 
Upon his tender organs broke, 
Confiised and stunned at the report. 
He to her arms fled for support^ 
And begged to be conveyed at once 
Out of the noise of those great guns, 
Those naughty guns, whose only sound 
Would kill (he said) without a wound: 
So much of horror and offence 
The shock had given his infant sense. 

Yet this was he in after days 
Who filled the world with martial praise, 
When from the English quarter-deck 
His steady courage swayed the wreck 
Of hostile fleets, disturbed no more 
By all that vast conflicting roar, 



144 



Poetry 



That sky and sea did seem to tear, 
When vessels whole blew up in air, 
Than at the smallest breath that heaves, 
When Zephyr hardly stirs the leaves. 






for Children, 14 c 



CLOCK STRIKING. 

Did I hear the church clock a few mmutes ago, 
I was asked, and I answered, I hardly did know, 

But I thought that I heard it strike three. 
Said my friend then, "The blessings we always possess 
We know not the want of, and prize them the less; 

The church clock was no new sound to thee. 

"A young woman, afflicted with deafness a year. 
By that sound you scarce heard, first perceived she could 
hear; 

I was near her, and saw the girl start 
With such exquisite wonder, such feelings of pride, 
A happiness almost to terror allied, 

She showed the sound went to her heart.'"" 



146 Poetry 



WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY? 

" Why so I will, you noisy bird, 
This very day I'll advertise you, 
Perhaps some busy ones may prize you. 
A fine-tongued parrot as was ever heard, 
I'll word it thus — set forth all charms about you, 
And say no family should be without you." 

Thus far a gentleman addressed a bird. 
Then to his friend : " An old procrastinator, 
Sir, I am : do you wonder that I hate her ? 
Though she but seven words can say, 
Twenty and twenty times a day 
She interferes with all my dreams. 
My projects, plans, and airy schemes, 
Mocking my foible to my sorrow : 
I'll advertise this bird to-morrow." 

To this the bird seven words did say: 
"Why not do it, sir, to-day?" 



for Children, 147 



HOME DELIGHTS. 

To OPERAS and balls my cousins take me, 

And fond of plays my new-made friend would make me. 

In summer season, when the days are fair. 

In my godmother's coach I take the air. 

My uncle has a stately pleasure barge, 

Gilded and gay, adorned with wonderous charge; 

The mast is polished, and the sails are fine. 

The awnings of white silk like silver shine; 

The seats of crimson satin, where the rowers 

Keep time to music with their painted oars; 

In this on holidays we oft resort 

To Richmond, Twickenham, or to Hampton Court. 

By turns we play, we sing — one baits the hook. 

Another angles — some more idle look 

At the small fry that sport beneath the tides, 

Or at the swan that on the surface ghdes. 

My married sister says there is no feast 

Equal to sight of foreign bird or beast. 

With her in search of these I often roam: 

My kinder parents make me blest at home. 

Tired of excursions, visitings, and sights. 

No joys are pleasing to these home delights. 



148 Poetry 



THE COFFEE SLIPS. 

Whene'er I fragrant coffee drink, 
I on the generous Frenchman think, 
Whose noble perseverance bore 
The tree to Martinico's shore. 
While yet her colony was new, 
Her island products but a few, 
Two shoots from off a coffee-tree 
He carried with him o'er the sea. 
Each little tender coffee slip 
He waters daily in the ship, 
And as he tends his embryo trees, 
Feels he is raising midst the seas 
Coffee groves, whose ample shade 
Shall screen the dark Creolian maid. 
But soon, alas! his darling pleasure 
In watching this his precious treasure 
Is like to fade, — for water fails 
On board the ship in which he sails. 
Now all the reservoirs are shut, 
The crew on short allowance put; 
So small a drop is each man's share, 



for Children. 149 

Few leavings you may think there are 

To water these poor coffee plants; — 

But he suppHes their gasping wants, 

Even from his own dry parched lips 

He spares it for his coffee slips. 

Water he gives his nurslings first, 

Ere he allays his own deep thirst 

Lest, if he first the water sip, 

He bear too far his eager lip. 

He sees them droop for want of more; — 

Yet when they reached the destined shore. 

With pride the heroic gardener sees 

A living sap still in his trees. 

The islanders his praise resound; 

Coffee plantations rise around; 

And Martinico loads her ships 

With produce from those dear-saved slips.* 

* The name of this man was Desdieux, and the story is to be 
found in the Abbe Raynal's History of the Settlements and Trade 
of the Europeans in the East ajid West Indies, book xiii. 



1 50 Poetry 



THE DESSERT. 

With the apples and the phims 

Little Carolina comes, 

At the time of the dessert she 

Comes and drops her last new curtsy : 

Graceful curtsy, practised o'er 

In the nursery before. 

What shall we compare her to ? 

The dessert itself will do. 

Like preserves she's kept with care, 

Like blanched almonds she is fair,- 

Soft as down on peach her hair. 

And so soft, so smooth is each 

Pretty cheek as that same peach, 

Yet more like in hue to cherries; 

Then her lips, the sweet strawberries, 

Caroline herself shall try them 

If they are not like when nigh them; 

Her bright eyes are black as sloes. 

But I think we've none of those 

Common fruit here — and her chin 

From a round point does begin. 



for Children, 151 

Like the small end of a pear; 
Whiter drapery she does wear 
Than the frost on cake; and sweeter 
Than the cake itself, and neater, 
Though bedecked with emblems fine. 
Is our little Caroline. 



152 Poetry 



TO A YOUNG LADY, 
ON BEING TOO FOND OF MUSIC. 

Why is your mind thus all day long 

Upon your music set; 
Till reason's swallowed in a song, 

Or idle canzonet? 

I grant you, Melesinda, when 
Your instrument was new, 

I was well pleased to see you then 
Its charms assiduous woo. 

The rudiments of any art 

Or mastery that we try, 
Are only on the learner's part 

Got by hard industry. 

But you are past your first essays; 

Whene'er you play, your touch. 
Skillful and light, ensures you praise: 

All beyond that's too much. 



for Children. 153 

Music's sweet uses are, to smooth 
Each rough and angry passion; 

To elevate at once, and soothe : 
A heavenly recreation. 



But we misconstrue, and defeat 

The end of any good; 
When what should be our casual treat, 

We make our constant food. 



While, to the exclusion of the rest, 
This single art you ply. 

Your nobler studies are supprest, 
Your books nedected lie. 



Could you in what you so affect 
The utmost summit reach; 

Beyond what fondest friends expect, 
Or skillfuUest masters teach : 



The skill- you learned would not repay 
The time and pains it cost, 

Youth's precious season thrown away, 
And reading-leisure lost. 



154 



Poetry 



A benefit to books we owe 
Music can ne'er dispense; 

The one does only sound bestow, 
The other gives us se7ise. 



for Children. 155 



TIME SPENT IN DRESS. 

In many a lecture, many a book, 

You all have heard, you all have read, 

That time is precious. Of its use 

Much has been written, much been said. 



The accomplishments which gladden life, 
As music, drawing, dancing, are 

Encroachers on our precious time; 
Their praise or dispraise I forbear. 



They should be practised or forborne, 
As parents wish, or friends desire: 

What rests alone in their own will 
Is all I of the young require. 

There's not a more productive source 
Of waste of time to the young mind 

Than dress; as it regards our hours 
My view of it is now confined. 



156 Poetry 

Without some calculation, youth 
May Hve to age and never guess, 

That no one study they pursue 

Takes half the time they give to dress. 



Write in your memorandum-book 

The time you at your toilette spend; 

Then every moment which you pass, 
Talking of dress with a young friend: 

And ever when your silent thoughts 
Have on this subject been intent, 

Set down as nearly as you can 

How long on dress your thoughts were bent. 

If faithfully you should perform 

This task, 'twould teach you to repair 

Lost hours, by giving unto dress 

Not more of time than its due share. 



for Children, 157 



THE FAIRY. 

Said Ann to Matilda, " I wish that we knew 
If what we've been reading of fairies be true. 
Do you think that the poet himself had a sight of 
The fairies he here does so prettily write of? 

what a sweet sight if he really had seen 
The graceful Titania, the Fairy-land Queen ! 

If I had such dreams, I would sleep a whole year; 

1 would not wish to wake while a fairy was near. — 
Now I'll fancy that I in my sleep have been seeing 
A fine little delicate lady-like being. 

Whose steps and whose motions so light were and airy, 
I knew at one glance that she must be a fairy. 
Her eyes they were blue, and her fine curling hair 
Of the lightest of browns, her complexion more fair 
Than I e'er saw a woman's; and then for her height 
I verily think that she measured not quite 
Two feet, yet so justly proportioned withal, 
I was almost persuaded to think she was tall. 
Her voice was the little thin note of a sprite — 
There — d'ye think I have made out a fairy aright? 



158 



Poetrv 



You'll confess, I believe, I've not done it amiss." 
" Pardon me," said Matilda, " I find in all this ' 

Fine description, you've only your young sister Mary 
Been taking a copy of here for a fairy." 



for Children. 159 



CONQUEST OF PREJUDICE, 



Unto a Yorkshire school was sent 
A negro youth to learn to write, 

And the first day young Juba went 
All gazed on him as a rare sight. 



But soon with altered looks askance 
They view his sable face and form, 

When they perceive the scornfiil glance 
Of the head boy, young Henry Orme. 



He in the school was first in fame: 
Said he, " It does to me appear 

To be a great disgrace and shame 
A black should be admitted here." 



His words were quickly whispered round, 
And every boy now looks offended; 

The master saw the change, and found 
That Orme a mutiny intended. 



1 60 Poetry 

Said he to Orme, " This African 
It seems is not by you approved; 

I'll find a way, young Englishman, 
To have this prejudice removed. 



" Nearer acquaintance possibly 
May make you tolerate his hue; 

At least 'tis my intent to try 

What a short month may chance to do." 



Young Orme and Juba then he led 
Into a room, in which there were 

For each of the two boys a bed, 
A table, and a wicker chair. 



He locked them in, secured the key, 
That all access to them was stopt; 

They from without can nothing see; 
Their food is through a skylight dropt. 



A month in this lone chamber Orme 
Is sentenced during all that time 

To view no other face or form 

Than Juba's parched by Afric clime. 



for Children. i6i 

One word they neither of them spoke 
The first three days of the first week; 

On the fourth day the ice Avas broke: 
Orme was the first that deigned to speak. 



The dreary silence o'er, both glad 
To hear of human voice the sound, 

The negro and the Enghsh lad 
Comfort in mutual converse found. 



Of ships and seas and foreign coast 
Juba can speak, for he has been 

A voyager: and Orme can boast 
He London's famous town has seen. 



In eager talk they pass the day, 

And borrow hours even from the night; 

So pleasantly time passed away, 

That they have lost their reckoning quite. 



And when their master set them free. 
They thought a week was sure remitted, 

And thanked him that their liberty 
Had been before the time permitted. 



1 62 Poetry 

Now Orme and Juba are good friends; 

The school, by Orme's example won, 
Contend who most shall make amends 

For former sHghts to Afric's son. 



4_ 



for Children. 163 



THE GREAT GRANDFATHER. 

My father's grandfather lives still, 
His age is fourscore years and ten; 

He looks a monument of time, 
The agedest of aged men. 



Though years lie on him like a load, 
A happier man you will not see 

Than he, whenever he can get 

His great grandchildren on his knee. 



When we our parents have displeased, 
He stands between us as a screen; 

By him our good deeds in the sun, 
Our bad ones in the shade are seen. 



His love's a hne that's long drawn out. 
Yet lasteth firm unto the end; 

His heart is oak, yet unto us 

It like the gentlest reed can bend. 



1 64 Poetry 

A fighting soldier he has been — 

Yet by his manners you would guess 

That he his whole long life had spent 
In scenes of country quietness. 



His talk is all of things long past, 
For modern facts no pleasure yield — 

Of the famed year of forty-five, 
Of Wilham, and Culloden's field. 



The deeds of this eventful age. 

Which princes from their thrones have hurled, 
Can no more interest wake in him 

Than stories of another world. 

When I his length of days revolve, 
How like a strong tree he hath stood, 

It brings into my mind almost 

Those patriarchs old before the flood. 



for Children. 165 



THE SPARTAN BOY. 

When I the memory repeat 

Of the heroic actions great, 

Which, in contempt of pain and death, 

Were done by men who drew their breath 

In ages past, I find no deed 

That can in fortitude exceed 

The noble boy, in Sparta bred, 

Who in the temple ministered. 

By the sacrifice he stands. 
The lighted incense in his hands. 
Through the smoking censer's lid 
Dropped a burning coal, which shd 
Into his sleeve and passed in 
Between the folds even to the skin. 
Dire was the pain which then he proved; 
But not for this his sleeve he moved. 
Or would the scorching ember shake 
Out from the folds, lest it should make 
Any confusion, or excite 
Disturbance at the sacred rite. 



1 66 Poetry 

But close he kept the burning coal, 
Till it eat itself a hole 
In his flesh. The standers by 
Saw no sign, and heard no cry. 
Of his pangs had no discerning, 
Till they smelled the flesh a-burning. 
All this he did in noble scorn. 
And for he was a Spartan born. 



Young student, who this story readest, 
And with the same thy thoughts now feedest, 
Thy weaker nerves might thee forbid 
To do the thing the Spartan did; 
Thy feebler heart could not sustain 
Such dire extremity of pain. 
But in this story thou mayst see, 
What may useful prove to thee. 
By his example thou wilt find, 
That to the ingenuous mind 
Shame can greater anguish bring 
Than the body's suffering; 
That pain is not the worst of ills, 
Not when it the body kills; 
That in fair reHgion's cause. 
For thy country, or the laws, 
When occasion due shall offer, 
Tis reproachful not to suffer. 



for Children. 167 



If thou shouldst a soldier be, 
And a wound should trouble thee, 
If without the soldier's fame 
Thou to chance should owe a maim, 
Do not for a little pain 
On thy manhood bring a stain; 
But to keep thy spirits whole, 
Think on the Spartan and the coaL 



Poetry 



QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM. 

On a bank with roses shaded, 
Whose sweet scent the violets aided, 
Violets whose breath alone 
Yields but feeble smell or none 
(Sweeter bed Jove ne'er reposed ($n 
When his eyes Olympus closed on), 
While o'erhead six slaves did hold 
Canopy of cloth o' gold, 
And two more did music keep 
Which might Juno lull to sleep, 
Oriana, who was queen 
To the mighty Tamerlane, 
That was lord of all the land 
Between Thrace and Samarcand, 
While the .noontide fervour beamed. 
Mused herself to sleep, and dreamed- 

Thus far in magnific strain 
A young poet soothed his vein, 
But he had nor prose nor numbers 
To express a princess' slumbers. — 



for Children. 169 

Youthful Richard had strange fancies, 
Was deep versed in old romances, 
And could talk whole hours upon 
The great Cham and Prester John, 
Tell the field in which the Sophi 
From the Tartar won a trophy — 
What he read with such delight of. 
Thought he could as easily write of — 
But his over-young invention 
Kept not pace with brave intention. 
Twenty suns did rise and set, 
And he could no further get. 
But unable to proceed, 
Made a virtue out of need. 
And (his labors wiselier deemed of) 
Did omit what the queen dreamed of. 



M) 



1 70 Poetry 



ON A PICTURE OF THE FINDING OF MOSE 
BY PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER. 

This picture does the story express 
Of Moses in the buhushes, 
How Hvehly the painter's hand 
By colors makes us understand! 

Moses that little infant is. 
This figure is his sister. This 
Fine stately lady is no less 
A personage than a princess, 
Daughter of Pharaoh, Egypt's king; 
Whom Providence did hither bring 
This little Hebrew child to save. 
See how near the perilous wave 
He Hes exposed in the ark. 
His rushy cradle, his frail bark! 
Pharaoh, king of Egypt land. 
In his greatness gave command 
To his slaves, they should destroy 
Every new-born Hebrew boy. 
This Moses was an Hebrew's son; 
When he was born, his birth to none 



for Childi'en. 171 

His mother told, to none revealed, 

But kept her goodly child concealed. 

Three months she hid him; then she wrought 

With bulrushes this ark, and brought 

Him in it to this river's side, 

Carefully looking far and wide 

To see that no Egyptian eye 

Her ark-hid treasure should espy. 

Among the river-flags she lays 

The child. Near him his sister stays. 

We may imagine her affright, 

When the king's daughter is in sight. 

Soon the princess will perceive 

The ark among the flags, and give 

Command to her attendant maid 

That its contents shall be displayed. 

Within the ark the child is found, 

And now he utters mournful sound. 

Behold he weeps, as if he were 

Afraid of cruel Egypt's heir! 

She speaks, she says, " This little one 

I will protect, though he the son 

Be of an Hebrew." Every word 

She speaks is by the sister heard. — 

And now observe, this is the part 

The painter chose to show his art. 

Look at the sister's eager eye. 

As here she seems advancing nigh. 



172 Poetry 

Lowly she bends, says, "Shall I go 
And call a nurse to thee? I know 
A Hebrew woman liveth near, 
Great lady, shall I bring her here ? " 
See ! Pharaoh's daughter answers, " Go."- 
No more the painter's art can show; 
He cannot make his figures move. — 
On the hght wings of swiftest love 
The girl will fly to bring the mother 
To be the nurse, she'll bring no other. 
To her will Pharaoh's daughter say, 
"Take this child from me away: 
For wages nurse him. To my home 
At proper age this child may come. 
When to our palace he is brought. 
Wise masters shall for him be sought 
To train him up, befitting one 
I would protect as my own son. 
And Moses be a name unto him 
Because I from the waters drew him." 



for Childreit, 173 



DAVID. 

It is not always to the strong 
Victorious battle shall belong. 
This found GoHath huge and tall : 
Mightiest giant of them all, 
Who in the proud Philistine host 
Defied Israel with boast. 

With loud voice Goliath said: 
" Here, armed Israel, gathered, 
And in array against us set: 
Ye shall alone by me be met. 
For am not I a Philistine ? 
What strength may be compared to mine ? 

" Choose ye a man of greatest might : 
And if he conquer me in fight, 
Then we will all servants be. 
King of Israel, unto thee. 
But if I the victor, then 
Shall Saul and all his armed men 
Bend low beneath Philistine yoke." 



1 74 Poetry 

Day by day these words he spoke, 
Singly traversing the ground. 
But not an Israehte was found 
To combat man to man with him, 
Who such prodigious force of Hmb 
Displayed. Like to a weaver's beam 
The ponderous spear he held did seem. 
In height six cubits he did pass, 
And he was arm'd all o'er in brass. 



Him we will leave awhile, and speak 
Of one, the soft down on whose cheek 
Of tender youth the tokens bare. 
Ruddy he was and very fair. 
David, the son of Jesse he. 
Small sized, yet beautiful to see. 
Three brothers had he in the band 
Of warriors under Saul's command; 
Himself at home did private keep 
In Bethlem's plains his father's sheep. 

Jesse said to this his son : 
" David, to thy brothers run, 
Where in the camp they now abide. 
And learn what of them may betide. 
These presents for their captains take, 
And of their fare inquiries make." 



for Children. 175 

With joy the youth his sire obeyed. — 
David was no whit dismay'd 
When he arrived at the place 
Where he beheld the strength and face 
Of dread Gohath, and could hear 
The challenge. Of the people near 
Unmoved he asked, what should be done 
To him who slew that boasting one, 
Whose words such mischiefs did forebode 
To the armies of the living God ? 



"The king," they unto David say, 
" Most amply will that man repay ; 
He and his father's house shall be 
Evermore in Israel free. 
With mighty wealth Saul will endow 
That man: and he has made a vow, 
Whoever takes Goliath's life, 
Shall have Saul's daughter for his wife." 

His eldest brother, who had heard 
His question, was to anger stirred 
Against the youth: for (as he thought) 
Things out of his young reach he sought. 
Said he, "\^^iat moved thee to come here, 
To question warlike men ? say, where 
And in whose care are those few sheep, 



1 7^ Poetry 

That in the wilderness you keep ? 

I know thy thoughts, how proud thou art : 

In the naughtiness of thy heart, 

Hoping a battle thou mayst see, 

Thou comest hither down to me." 

Then answered Jesse's youngest son 
In these words : " What have I done ? 
Is there not cause ? " Some there which heard, 
And at the manner of his word 
Admired, report this to the king. 
By his command they David bring 
Into his presence. Fearless then, 
Before the king and his chief men, 
He shows his confident design 
To combat with the Philistine. 
Saul with wonder heard the youth, 
And thus addressed him : " Of a truth. 
No power thy untried sinew hath 
To cope with this great man of Gath." 

Lowly David bowed his head. 
And with firm voice the stripling said: 
"Thy servant kept his father's sheep; 
Rushing from a mountain steep 
There came a lion, and a bear. 
The firstlings of my flock to tear. 



i 



for Child7'en. I77 

Thy servant hath that lion killed, 

And killed that bear, when from the field 

Two young lambs by force they seized. 

The Lord was mercifully pleased 

Me to deliver from the paw 

Of the fierce bear, and cruel jaw 

Of the strong lion. I shall slay 

The unrighteous Philistine this day, 

If God deliver him also 

To me." He ceased. The king said, " Go ! 

Thy God, the God of Israel, be 

In the battle still with thee," 



David departs unarmed, save 
A staff in hand he chanced to have. 
Nothing to the fight he took. 
Save five smooth stones from out a brook; 
These in his shepherd's scrip he placed, 
That was fastened round his waist. 
With staff and sling alone he meets 
The armed giant, who him greets 
With nought but scorn. Looking askance 
On the fair ruddy countenance 
Of his young enemy — "Am I 
A dog, that thou comest here to try 
Thy strength upon me with a staff? " 
Goliath said with scornful laugh. 
13 



I jZ Poetry 

" Thou comest with sword, with spear, with shield 

Yet thou to me this day must yield. 

The Lord of Hosts is on my side. 

Whose armies boastful thou'st defied. 

All nations of the earth shall hear 

He saveth not with shield and spear." 

Thus David spake, and nigher went, 
Then choosing from his scrip, he sent 
Out of his slender sling a stone. — 
The giant uttered fearful moan. 
The stone though small had pierced deep 
Into his forehead, endless sleep 
Giving Gohath — and thus died 
Of Philistines the strength and pride. 



for Childre7t. 179 



DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM. 

David and his three captains bold 

Kept ambush once within a hold. 

It was in AduUam's cave, 

Nigh which no water they could have. 

Nor spring nor running brook was near 

To quench the thirst that parched them there. 

Then David king of Israel 

Straight bethought him of a well 

Which stood beside the city gate 

At Bethlem : Where, before his state 

Of kingly dignity, he had 

Oft drunk his fill, a shepherd lad. 

But now his fierce Philistian foe 

Encamped before it he does know. 

Yet ne'er the less with heat opprest, 

Those three bold captains he addrest, 

And wished that one to him would bring 

Some water from his native spring. 

His vahant captains instantly 

To execute his will did fly, 



1 80 Poetry 

Those three brave men the ranks broke through 

Of armed foes, and water drew 

For David, their beloved king, 

At his own sweet native spring. 

Back through their enemies they haste, 

With the hard-earned treasure graced. 

What with such danger they had sought. 

With joy unto their king they brought. 

But when the good king David found 

What they had done, he on the ground 

The water poured, " Because," said he, 

" That it was at the jeopardy 

Of your three Hves this thing ye did, 

That I should drink it God forbid." 



PRINCE DORUS; 

OR, 

FLATTERY PUT OUT OF COUNTENANCE, 

^ i^oetical Vcxmon of an Ancient Euh. 

1811. 



1 83 



PRINCE DORUS. 

In days of yore, as ancient stories tell, 
A king in love with a great princess fell. 
Long at her feet submiss the monarch sighed, 
While she with stern repulse his suit denied. 
Yet was he formed by birth to please the fair, 
Dressed, danced, and courted, with a monarch's air; 
But magic spells her frozen breast had steeled 
With stubborn pride that knew not how to yield. 

This to the king a courteous fairy told. 
And bade the monarch in his suit be bold; 
For he that would the charming princess wed, 
Had only on her cat's black tail to tread, 
When straight the spell would vanish into air, 
And he enjoy for life the yielding fair. 

He thanked the fairy for her kind advice. 
Thought he, " If this be all, I'll not be nice ; 
Rather than in my courtship I will fail 
I will to mince-meat tread Minon's black tail." 
To the princess's court repairing straight, 



184 Prince Dor us. 

He sought the cat that must decide his fate; 
But when he found her, how the creature stared! 
How her back bristled, and her great eyes glared! 
That tail which he so fondly hoped his prize, 
Was swelled by wrath to twice its usual size; 
And all her cattish gestures plainly spoke 
She thought the affair he came upon no joke. 

With wary step the cautious king draws near, 
And slyly means to attack her in her rear: 
But when he thinks upon her tail to pounce, 
Whisk — off she skips — three yards upon a bounce; 
Again he tries, again his efforts fail — 
Minon's a witch — the deuce is in her tail. 



The anxious chase for weeks the monarch tried, 
Tiil courage failed, and hope within him died. 
A desperate suit 'twas useless to prefer. 
Or hope to catch a tail of quicksilver. 
When on a day, beyond his hopes, he found 
Minon, his foe, asleep upon the ground; 
Her ample tail behind her lay outspread. 
Full to the eye, and tempting to the tread. 
Tlie king with rapture the occasion blessed, 
And with quick foot the fatal part he pressed. 
Loud squalls were heard, like bowlings of a storm, 
And sad he gazed on Minon's altered form, — 



Prmce Dorus. 185 

No more a cat, but changed into a man 
Of giant size, who frowned, and thus began : 

'' Rash king, that dared with impious design 

To violate that tail that once was mine; 

What though the spell be broke, and burst the charms 

That kept the princess from thy longing arms, — 

Not unrevenged shalt thou my fury dare. 

For by that violated tail I swear, 

From your unhappy nuptials shall be born 

A prince whose nose shall be thy subjects' scorn. 

Blessed in his love thy son shall never be 

Till he his foul deformity shall see. 

Till he with tears his blemish shall confess, 

Discern its odious length, and wish it less ! " 

This said, he vanished ; and the king awhile 
Mused at his words, then answered with a smile^ 
" Give me a child in happy wedlock born. 
And let his nose be made like a French horn; 
His knowledge of the fact I ne'er can doubt,— 
4,f he have eyes, or hands, he'll find it out." 

So spake the king, self-flattered in his thought, 
Then with impatient step the princess sought; 
His urgent suit no longer she withstands, 
But links with him in Hymen's knot her hands. 



1 86 Prince Dor us. 

Almost as soon a widow as a bride. 
Within a year the king her husband died; 
And shortly after he was dead and gone, 
She was deUvered of a little son, 
The prettiest babe, with lips as red as rose, 
And eyes like little stars — but such a nose — 
The tender mother fondly took the boy 
Into her arms, and would have kissed her joy; 
His luckless nose forbade the fond embrace — 
He thrust the hideous feature in her face. 

Then all her maids of honor tried in turn, 
And for a prince's kiss in envy burn; 
By sad experience taught, their hopes they missed, 
And mourned a prince that never could be kissed. 

In silent tears the queen confessed her grief, 

Till kindest flattery came to her reUef. 

Her maids, as each one takes him in her arms. 

Expatiate freely o'er his world of charms — 

His eyes, lips, mouth — his forehead was divine— 

And for the nose — they called it aquiline — 

Declared that Csesar, who the world subdued, 

Had such a one — just of that longitude — 

That kings like him compelled folks to adore them, 

And drove the short-nosed sons of men before them- 

That length of nose portended length of days, 



Prince Dorus. 187 

And was a great advantage many ways — 

To mourn the gifts of Providence was wrong — 

Besides, the nose was not so very long. 

These arguments in part her grief redrest, 
A mother's partial fondness did the rest; 
And Time, that all things reconciles by use, 
Did in her notions such a change produce, 
That, as she views her babe, with favor blind, 
She thinks him handsomest of human kind. 

Meantime, in spite of his disfigured face, 
Dorus (for so he's called) grew up apace; 
In fair . proportion all his features rose. 
Save that most prominent of all — his nose. 
That nose, which in the infant could annoy, 
Was grown a perfect nuisance in the boy. 
Whene'er he walked, his handle went before, 
Long as the snout of ferret, or wild boar; 
Or like the staff, with which on holy day 
The solemn parish beadle clears the way. 

But from their cradle to their latest year, 
How seldom truth can reach a prince's ear! 
To keep the unwelcome knowledge out of view, 
His lesson well each flattering courtier knew; 
The hoary tutor, and the wily page. 
Unmeet confederates! dupe his tender age. 



1 88 Pri7ice Dor us. 

They taught him that whate'er vain mortals boast - 
Strength, courage, wisdom — all they value most — 
Whate'er on human life distinction throws — 
Was all comprised — in what? — a length of nose! 
Even Virtue's self (by some supposed chief merit) 
In short-nosed folks was only want of spirit. 



While doctrines such as these his guides instilled, 
His palace was with long-nosed people filled ; 
At Court whoever ventured to appear 
With a short nose, was treated with a sneer. 
Each courtier's wife, that with a babe is blest, 
Moulds its young nose betimes ; and does her best. 
By pulls, and hauls, and twists, and lugs, and pinches, 
To stretch it to the standard of the prince's. 



Duped by these arts, Dorus to manhood rose, ' 
Nor dreamed of aught more comely than his nose; 
Till Love, whose power e'en princes have confest, 
Claimed the soft empire o'er his youthful breast. 
Fair Claribel was she who caused his care; 
A neighboring monarch's daughter, and sole heir. 
For beauteous Claribel his bosom burned; 
The beauteous Claribel his flame returned; 
Deigned with kind words his passion to approve. 
Met his soft vows, and yielded love for love. 



Prince Dorus. 189 

If in her mind some female pangs arose 

At sight (and who can blame her ? ) of his nose, 

Affection made her willing to be blind; 

She loved him for the beauties of his mind; 

And in his lustre, and his royal race, 

Contented sunk — one feature of his face. 



Blooming to sight, and lovely to behold, 
Herself was cast in Beauty's richest mould; 
Sweet female majesty her person decked 
Her face an angel's — save for one defect: 
Wise Nature, who to Dorus over kind, 
A length of nose too liberal had assigned. 
As if with us poor mortals to make sport. 
Had given to Claribel a nose too short: 
But turned up with a sort of modest grace ; 
It took not much of beauty from her face : 
And subtle courtiers, who their prince's mind 
Still watched, and turned about with every wind. 
Assured the prince, that though man's beauty owes 
Its charms to a majestic length of nose, 
The excellence of woman (softer creature) 
Consisted in the shortness of that feature. 
Few arguments were wanted to convince 
The already more than half-persuaded prince; 
Truths which we hate with slowness we receive. 
But what we wish to credit, soon believe. 



190 Prince Dor us. 

The princess's affections being gained, 

What but her sire's approval now remained? 

Ambassadors with solemn pomp are sent 

To win the aged monarch to consent 

(Seeing their States already were allied) 

That Dorus might have Claribel to bride. 

Her royal sire, who wisely miderstood 

The match proposed was for both kingdoms' good, 

Gave his consent; and gentle Claribel 

With weeping bids her father's court farewell. 



With gallant pomp, and numerous array, 
Dorus went forth to meet her on her way; 
But when the princely pair of lover's met, 
Their hearts on mutual gratulations set. 
Sudden the Enchanter from the ground arose 
(The same who prophesied the prince's nose), 
And with rude grasp, unconscious of her charms, 
Snatched up the lovely princess in his arms, 
Then bore her out of reach of human eyes, 
Up in the pathless regions of the skies. 



Bereft of her that was his only care, 
Dorus resigned his soul to wild despair; 
Resolved to leave the land that gave him birth, 
And seek fair Claribel throughout the earth, 



Prince Dorus. 191 

Mounting his horse^ he gives the beast the reins^ 
And wanders lonely through the desert plains; 
With fearless heart the savage heath explores, 
Where the wolf prowls, and where the tiger roars, 
Nor wolf> nor tiger, dare his way oppose ; 
The wildest creatures see, and shun, his nose. 
Even Hons fear! the elephant alone 
-Surveys with pride a trunk so like his own. 

At length he to a shady forest came. 

Where in a cavern lived an aged dame ; 

A reverend fairy, on whose silver head 

A hundred years their downy snows had shed. 

Here entering in, the mistress of the place 

Bespoke him welcome with a cheerful grace; 

Fetched forth her dainties, spread her social board 

With all the store her dwelling could afford. 

The prince, with toil and hunger sore opprest, 

Gladly accepts, and deigns to be her guest. 

But when the first civihties were paid, 

The dishes ranged, and grace in order said, 

The fairy, who had leisure now to view 

Her guest more closely, fi-om her pocket drew 

Her spectacles, and wiped them from the dust, 

Then on her nose endeavored to adjust; 

With difficulty she could find a place 

To hang them on in her unshapely face; 

For if the princess's was somewhat small, 



192 P^nncc Dor us. 

This fairy scarce had any nose at all. 
But when by help of spectacles the crone 
Discerned a nose so different from her own, 
What peals of laughter shook her aged sides ! 
While with sharp jests the prince she thus derides. 



Welcome, great Prince of Noses, to my cell; 
'Tis a poor place,— but thus we fairies dwell. 
Pray, let me ask you, if from far you come — 
And don't you sometimes find it cumbersome? 



Find what? 



Your nose — 

PRINCE. 

My nose, ma'am ! 

FAIRY. 

No offence. 
The king your father was a man of sense — 
A handsome man {but lived not to be old), 
And had a nose cast in the common mould. 



Prince Dorus. 193 

Even I myself, that now with age am grey, 

Was thought to have some beauty in my day, 

And am the daughter of a king. — Your sire 

In this poor face saw something to admire; 

And I to show my gratitude made shift — 

Have stood his friend — and helped him at a lift — 

'Twas I that, when his hopes began to fail, 

Showed him the spell that lurked in Minon's tail. 

Perhaps you have heard — but come, sir, you don't eat — 

That nose of yours requires both wine and meat; 

Fall to, and welcome, without more ado : 

You see your fare — what shall I help you to ? 

This dish the tongues of nightingales contains ; 

This, eyes of peacocks ; and that, linnets' brains ; 

That next you is a bird of paradise — 

We fairies in our food are somewhat nice. — 

And pray, sir, while your hunger is supplied, 

Do lean your nose a little on one side; 

The shadow which it casts upon the meat 

Darkens my plate, I see not what I eat." 



The prince on dainty after dainty feeding, 
Felt inly shocked at the old fairy's breeding; 
But held it want of manners in the dame, 
And did her country education blame. 
One thing he only wondered at, — what she 
So very comic in his nose could see. 
14 



194 Prince Dor us. 

Hers, it must be confessed, was somewhat short, 
And time and shrinking age accounted for 't; 
But for his own, thank Heaven, he could not tell 
That it was ever thought remarkable ; 
A decent nose, of reasonable size, 
And handsome • thought, rather than otherwise. 
But that which most of all his wonder paid, 
Was to observe the fairy's waiting-maid; 
How at each word the aged dame let fall 
She curtseyed low, and smiled assent to all; 
But chiefly when the reverend grannam told 
Of conquests which her beauty made of old. 
He smiled to see how flattery swayed the dame, 
Nor knew himself was open to the same! 
He finds her raillery now increase so fast. 
That making hasty end of his repast, 
Glad to escape her tongue, he bids farewell 
To the old fairy and her friendly cell. 



But his kind hostess, who had vainly tried 
The force of ridicule to cure his pride. 
Fertile in plans, a surer method chose. 
To make him see the error of his nose ; 
For, till he viewed that feature with remorse, 
The enchanter's direful spell must be in force. 
Midway the road by which the prince must pass, 
She raised by magic art a house of glass : 



Prince Dorics. 195 

No mason's hand appeared, nor work of wood; 

Compact of glass the wondrous fabric stood. 

Its stately pillars, glittering in the sun, 

Conspicuous from afar, like silver, shone. 

Here, snatched and rescued from the enchanter's might. 

She placed the beauteous Claribel in sight. 



The admiring prince the crystal dome surveyed, 
And sought access unto his lovely maid; 
But, strange to tell, in all that mansion's bound, 
Nor door nor casement was there to be found. 
Enraged, he took up massy stones, and flung 
With such a force that all the palace rung; 
But made no more impression on the glass 
Than if the solid structure had been brass. 
To comfort his despair, the lovely maid 
Her snowy hand against her window laid; 
But when with eager haste he thought to kiss. 
His nose stood out, and robbed him of the bliss. 
Thrice he essayed the impracticable feat; 
The window and his lips can never meet. 



The painful truth which flattery long concealed. 
Rushed on his mind, and, " O ! " he cried, " I yield 
Wisest of fairies, thou wert right, I wrong — 
/ own, I own, I have a ?iose too long^ 



196 Prince Dor us. 

The frank confession was no sooner spoke 
But into shivers all the palace broke. 
His nose of monstrous length, to his surprise, 
Shrunk to the limits of a common size ; 
And Claribel with joy her lover viewed, 
Now grown as beautiful as he was good. 
The aged fairy in their presence stands, 
Confirms their mutual vows, and joins their hands. 
The prince with rapture hails the happy hour, 
That rescued him from self-delusion's power; 
And trains of blessings crown the future life 
Of Dorus, and of Claribel, his wife. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 

BY CHARLES LAMB. 

HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED. 

(1796-1832.) 



( 199 ) 



ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS 
WESTWOOD'S ALBUM. 

My feeble Muse, that fain her best would 
Write, at command of Frances Westwood, 
But feels her wits not in their best mood, 
Fell lately on some idle fancies. 
As she's much given to romances. 
About this self-same style of Frances; 
Which seems to be a name in common 
Attributed to man or woman. 
She thence contrived this flattering moral, 
With which she hopes no soul will quarrel. 
That she, whom this twin title decks. 
Combines what's good in either sex; 
Unites — how very rare the case is! — 
Masculine sense to female graces 
And, quitting not her proper rank, 
Is both in one — Fanny -axiA frank. 

Oct, 12, 1827. 



( 199 ) 



ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS 
WESTWOOD'S ALBUM. 

My feeble Muse, that fain her best would 
Write, at command of Frances Westwood, 
But feels her wits not in their best mood, 
Fell lately on some idle fancies. 
As she's much given to romances, 
About this self-same style of Frances; 
Which seems to be a name in common 
Attributed to man or woman. 
She thence contrived this flattering moral, 
With which she hopes no soul will quarrel. 
That she, whom this twin title decks. 
Combines what's good in either sex; 
Unites — how very rare the case is! — 
Masculine sense to female graces 
And, quitting not her proper rank. 
Is both in one — Fan?iy 'and frank. 

Oct. 12, 1827. 



( 200 ) 



LINES 
ADDRESSED TO LIEUT. R. W. H. HARDY, R. N., 

ON THE PERUSAL OF HIS VOLUME OF TRAVELS 
IN THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO. 

'Tis pleasant, lolling in our elbow-chair, 

Secure at home, to read descriptions rare 

Of venturous traveller in savage climes : 

His hair-breadth 'scapes, toil, hunger — and sometimes 

The merrier passages that, like a foil 

To set off perils past, sweetened that toil, 

And took the edge from danger; and I look 

With such fear-mingled pleasure through thy book, 

Adventurous Hardy ! Thou a diver* art, 

But of no common form ; and, for thy part 

Of the adventure, hast brought home to the nation 

Pearls of discovery — jewels of observation. 

Enfield, January, 1830. 

^Captain Hardy practised this art with considerable success. 



( 20I ) 



THE FIRST LEAF OF SPRING. 

WRITTEN ON THE FIRST LEAF OF A LADY'S ALBUM. 

Thou fragile, filmy, gossamery thing, 

First leaf of spring ! 

At every lightest breath that qiiakest. 

And with a zephyr shakest; 

Scarce stout enough to hold thy slender form together 

In calmest halcyon weather: 

Next sister to the web that spiders weave, 

Poor flutterers to deceive 

Into their treacherous silken bed : 

O ! how art thou sustained, how nourished ! 

All trivial as thou art, 

Without dispute, 

Thou play'st a mighty part; 

And art the herald to a throng 

Of buds, blooms, fruit, 

That shall thy cracking branches sway. 

While birds on every spray 

Shall pay the copious fruitage with a sylvan song. 



( 202 ) 

So 'tis with thee, whoe'er on thee shall look, 

First leaf of this beginning modest book. 

Slender thou art, God knowest. 

And little grace bestowest, 

But in thy train shall follow after, 

Wit, wisdom, seriousness, in hand with laughter; 

Provoking jests, restraining soberness. 

In their appropriate dress; 

And I shall joy to be outdone 

By those who brighter trophies won, 

Without a grief. 

That I thy slender promise have begun, 

First leaf 



1832. 



C^<^^fe^)^ 



( 203 ) 



THE APE. 

To THE Editor [of the "London Magazine"]. 

Mr. Editor —The riddling lines which I send you, were written 
upon a young lady who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood, 
was named by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written, 
L., M. had outgrown the title— but not the memory of it — being in 
her teens, and consequently past child-tricks. They are an en- 
deavor to express that perplexity which one feels at any alteration, 
even supposed for the better, in a beloved object; with a little 
oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new graces without 
taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can ill miss. 

An Ape is but a trivial beast, 

Men count it light and vain; 
But I would let them have their thoughts, 

To have my Ape again. 

To love a beast in any sort 

Is no great sign of grace; 
But I have loved a flouting Ape's 

'Bove any lady's face. 



204 The Ape. 

I have known the power of two fair eyes, 

In smile or else in glance, 
And how (for I a lover was) 

They make the spirits danqe; 



But I would give two hundred smiles 

Of them that fairest be, 
For one look of my staring Ape 

That used to stare on me. 



This beast, this Ape, it had a face — 
If face it might be styled — 

Sometimes it was a staring Ape, 
Sometimes a beauteous child — 



A Negro flat — a Pagod squat. 
Cast in a Chinese mould — 

And then it was a Cherub's face 
Made of the beaten gold ! 



But Time, that's meddling, meddling still, 
And always altering things — 

And what's already at the best 
To alteration brings. 



The Ape. 205 

That turns the sweetest buds to flowers, 

And chops and changes toys, 
That breaks up dreams, and parts old friends, 

And still commutes our joys — 



Has changed away my Ape at last 
And in its place conveyed. 

Thinking therewith to cheat my sight, 
A fresh and blooming maid! 



And fair to sight is she — and still 
Each day doth sightlier grow, 

Upon the ruins of the Ape, 
My ancient playfellow! 



The tale of Sphinx, and Theban jests 

I true in me perceive; 
I suffer riddles; death from dark 

Enigmas I receive : 



Whilst a hid being I pursue. 
That lurks in a new shape. 

My darling in herself I miss, 
And, in my ape, the ape. 



2o6 Prologue to 



I 



PROLOGUE TO FAULKENER: A TRAGEDY 
BY WILLIAM GODWIN, 1807. 

An author who has given you all delight 

Furnished the tale our stage presents to-night. 

Some of our earliest tears he taught to steal 

Down our young cheeks, and forced us first to feel. 

To solitary shores whole years confined. 

Who has not read how pensive Crusoe pined? 

Who, now grown old, that did not once admire 

His goat, his parrot, his uncouth attire, 

The stick, due-notched, that told each tedious day 

That in the lonely island wore away? 

Who has not shuddered, where he stands aghast 

At sight of human footsteps in the waste ? 

Or joyed not, when his trembfing hands unbind 

Thee, Friday, gentlest of the savage kind ? 

The genius who conceived that magic tale 
Was skilled by native pathos to prevail. 
■ His stories, though rough-drawn and framed in haste, 
Had that which pleased our homely grandsires' taste. 



Godwins Faulkener, 207 

His was a various pen, that freely roved 
Into all subjects, was in most approved. 
Whate'er the theme, his ready Muse obeyed — 
Love, courtship, politics, rehgion, trade — 
Gifted alike to shine in every sphere, 
Novelist, historian, poet, pamphleteer. 

In some blest interval of party-strife, 
He drew a striking sketch from private life, 
Whose moving scenes of intricate distress 
We try. to-night in a dramatic dress : 
A real story of domestic woe. 
That asks no aid from music, verse, or show, 
But trusts to truth, to Nature, and Defoe. 




( 2o8 ) 



1 



TO THE POET COWPER, ON HIS RECOVERY 
FROM AN INDISPOSITION. 

WRITTEN SOME TIME BACK. 

CowPER, I thank my God that thou art healed. 

Thine was the sorest malady of all, 

And I am sad to thmk that it should light 

Upon the worthy head; but thou art healed, 

And thou art yet, we trust, the destined man, 

Born to re-animate the lyre, whose chords 

Have slumbered, and have idle lain so long; 

To the immortal sounding of whose strings 

Did Milton frame the stately-paced verse; 

Among whose wires with hghter finger playing 

Our elder bard, Spenser, a gentler name, 

The lady Muses' dearest darling child. 

Enticed forth the deftest tunes yet heard 

In hall or bower; taking the dehcate ear 

Of the brave Sidney, and the Maiden Queen. 

Thou, then, take up the mighty epic strain, 

Cowper, of England's bards the wisest and the best! 



( 209 ) 



LINES ADDRESSED FROM LONDON, TO 

SARA AND S. T. C. AT BRISTOL, 

IN THE SUMMER OF 1796. 

Was it so hard a thing ? I did but ask 

A fleeting hohday, a Httle week. 

What, if the jaded steer who all day long, 

Had borne the heat and burthen of the plough, 

When evening came, and her sweet cooling hour, 

Should seek to wander in a neighbor copse, 

Where greener herbage waved, or clearer streams 

Invited him to slake his burning thirst ? 

The man were crabbed who should say him nay. 

The man were churlish who should drive him thence. 



A blessing light upon your worthy heads. 
Ye hospitable pair! I may not come 
To catch, on Clifden's heights, the summer gale; 
I may not come to taste the Avon wave; 
Or, with mine eye intent on Redchffe towers, 
To muse in tears on that mysterious youth. 
Cruelly sHghted, who, in evil hour, 
Shaped his adventurous course to London walls! 

^5 



2IO To S. T. C 

Complaint, be gone ! and, ominous thoughts, away ! 
Take up, my song, take up a merrier strain : 
For yet again, and lo ! from Avon's vales. 
Another minstrel* cometh. Youth endeared, 
God and good angels guide thee on thy road, 
And gentler fortunes wait the friends I love. 

*"From vafes where Avon winds, the mhistrel came." 

Coleridge's Monody, ojz Chatterton. 



(r^:>^^^^^^^^x^^ 



(211) 



SONNET TO A FRIEND. 

Friend of my earliest years and childish days, 

My joys, my sorrows, thou with me hast shared, 
Companion dear, and we alike have fared 

(Poor pilgrims we) through life's unequal way; 
It were unwisely done, should we refuse 

To cheer our path as featly as we may, 
Our lonely path to cheer, as travellers use. 

With merry song, quaint tale, or roundelay; 
And we will sometimes talk past troubles o'er, 

Of mercies shown, and all our sickness healed, 
And in his judgments God remembering love; 

And we will learn to praise God evermore, 
For those glad tidings of great joy revealed. 

By that sooth messenger sent from above. 



( 2I'2 ) 



SONNET. 

The Lord of Life shakes off his drowsihed, 
And 'gins to sprinkle on the earth below 
Those rays that from his shaken locks do flow; 

Meantime, by truant love of rambling led, 

I turn my back on thy detested walls. 
Proud city! and thy sons I leave behind, 
A sordid, selfish, money-getting kind; 

Brute things, who shut their ears when Freedom calls. 

I pass not thee so hghtly, well-known spire, 
That mindest me of many a pleasure gone, 
Of merrier days, of love and Islington; 

Kindling afresh the flames of past desire. 

And I shall muse on thee slow journeying on 

To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire. 

1795- 



NOTES. 



ENVY. 

(Page I.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. 



THE RIDE. 

(Page 4.) 

In Mylius' First Book of Poetry this little piece is more fully and 

fittingly rechristened The First Sight of Green Fields — a title which 

one can hardly help supposing to be an afterthought of the original 

author. 



THE PEACH. 

(Page 8.) 
This piece reappeared in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. 



CHOOSING A NAME. 
(Page 9.) 
Some lines by Charles Lamb, entitled "Christian Names of 
Women," which first appeared in the Athenceum of March 9, 1833, 
and which contain playful or tender allusions to several of the same 
names, — Mary, Joan, Rebecca, and Edith, — seem to indicate him 
with something approaching absolute certainty as the author of this 
poem. Any reader carefully comparing the two will, I think, come 
to the same conclusion. 



214 Notes, 



THE ROOK AND THE SPARROWS. 
(Page 12.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. The reading in the fifth 
line ■ — 

" For suddenly Hwas from him torn^'' 

as it appears in the selection edited by me and published by Mr. 
Pickering in 1872, lest it should mystify any future student, was, 
let me take this opportunity of confessing, a substitution of my own, 
made without any violation to the sense, but with no authority either 
from the original or from Mylius, to get rid of one of those bar- 
barous Cockney rhymes which recur but too often in Mary Lamb's 
portion of the present book. 

This poem is one of those remarkable for a broader and freer tone 
of morality and a larger tolerance than generally pervades composi- 
tions of this kind. 



THE BOY AND SNAKE. 
(Page 22.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry^ but with the omission of 
lines 5 to 10. There is an illustration to this poem in the original 
edition. 



THE FIRST TOOTH. 
(Page 25.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, This poem is un- 
doubtedly by Mary Lamb, as the last line of it — 

"A child is fed with milk and praise," 

is thus quoted (from memory apparently) in Eha's Popular Fal- 
lacies (New Monthly Magazine, 1826) : ''It has been prettily saidy 
that *a babe is fed with milk and praise.' " 



Notes. _ 215 



TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS 
DROWNED. 
(Page 27.) 
Printed in one of the editions of Mylius' Poetical Class-Book. 
This poem is undoubtedly by Charles Lamb, for he reprinted it 
as his own in the collected Edition of his Works in 1818, and it 
has reappeared in every edition since. 

CLEANLINESS. 
(Page 30.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book 0/ Poetry, but with the omission of 
lines II to 14, containing the allusion to palmistry. 



GOING INTO BREECHES, 

(Page 34.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. 



NURSING. 

(Page 36.) 

Printed in Myhus' Fiist Book of Poetry, 



FEIGNED COURAGE. 

(Page 45.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. 



THE BROKEN DOLL. 

(Page 46.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, 



2i6 Notes. 

WRITTEN IN THE FIRST LEAF OF A CHILD'S 

MEMORANDUM BOOK. 

(Page 59.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, 



MEMORY. 

(Page 60.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, 



THE THREE FRIENDS. 
(Page 74.) 
This is by far the longest, as it certainly is one of the most 
memorable pieces in the Poetry for Childj-en. Charles Lamb re- 
published it as his own in the Collected Edition of his Works in 
1818, making, however, two minute verbal alterations — in die first 
line altering "girls" to "maids," and in the forty-sixth line, 
"There's no good" to "Not one good." These two authorized 
and deliberately made changes render it possible that other variations 
of text noted in the Mylius versions of some of the poems may, at 
least in a few instances, be attributable to the writers themselves. 



ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

(Page 83.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, 

'SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, AND FORBID THEM 

NOT, TO COME UNTO ME." 

(Page 85.) 

This poem closes the first volume in the original edition. 



Notes, 2 1 7 

THE MAGPIE'S NEST, OR A LESSON OF DOCILITY. 
(Page '^1.) 

This poem, in the original edition, opens the second volume. The 
substance of it is printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, where, 
however, it is shorn of its second title, cut up into sections which 
destroy its unity, and for which the original gives no warrant, and 
otherwise sadly mangled, notably by the omission of the eleventh 
stanza, containing the starling's speech. An explanatory prose note 
is, however, added to the Mylius version of the poem, which may 
have been contributed by the original writer. It runs as follows : — 

" I beg to inform my young readers that the magpie is the only 
bird that builds a top to the nest for her young." 



THE BOY AND THE SKYLARK. 
(Page 91.) 
Here again the Mylius version of this poem is deplorably de- 
ficient: two stanzas of the skylark's speech (the eleventh and 
twelfth of the poem) being entirely omitted. They are among the 
most poetical in the book, being pitched in a higher key than is 
usually attempted. 

There is an illustration to this poem in the original edition of the 
book. 

THE BEGGAR-MAN, 

(Page loi.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. 



BREAKFAST. 
(Page 105.) 
Printed in Mylius' Poetical Class-Book. This- poem was unknown 
to Mr. Carew HazUtt when publishing his Remains of Charles and 



2i8 Notes. 

Mary Lamb, but it reappeared in the selection from Poetry for 
Children, published by Mr. Pickering in 1872. 

The later portion of the poem, descriptive of " Sleepy Robert," 
always struck me as singularly amusing in its lax and indulgent 
morality. 

PARENTAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
(Page 109.) 
I entertain no doubt whatever that these three exquisite stanzas 
are the work of Charles and not of Mary Lamb; so high a key- 
note as this is not struck more than once or twice throughout the 
book. They were probably suggested by one of Coleridge's boys, 
Hartley or Derwent, the " Pipos " of Lamb's letters. 



THE TWO BOYS. 
(Page no.) 
This poem is quoted in extenso at the end of Ella's Detached 
Thoughts on Books arid Reading (London Magazine, July, 1822, p. 36), 
where it is thus introduced: — *' There is a class of street-readers, 
whom I can never contemplate without affection — the poor gentry who, 
not having wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning 
at the open stalls — the owner, with his hard eye, casting envious looks 
at them all the while, and thinking when they will have done. 
Venturing tenderly, page after page, expecting every moment when 
he shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable to deny themselves 

the gratification, they ' snatch a fearful joy.' Martin B- in this 

way, by daily fragments, got through two volumes of Clarissa, when 
the stall-keeper damped his laudable ambition by asking him (it was 
in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase the work. M. 
declares, that under no circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a 
book with half the satisfaction which he took in those uneasy 
snatches. A quaint poetess of our day has moralized upon this 



Notes. 2 1 9 

subject in tivo very touching but homely stanzas.^'' It is therefore 
unquestionably the production of Mary Lamb. 

It seems very improbable that Lamb, while unconsciously 
changing a word in citing a single line only from memory of 
another of his sister's contributions to this work, should have 
quoted a poem of twenty lines from memory without any variation. 
It is, therefore, fairly presumable that he transcribed it from the 
actual book. 

THE SISTER'S EXPOSTULATION ON THE BROTHER'S 

LEARNING LATIN, AND THE BROTHER'S REPLY. 

(Page 113.) 

Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. These companion 

pieces call to mind a sonnet on a similar subject, written by Mary 

Lamb, which lies buried in an old volume oi Blackwood's Magazine.'^ 

It was addressed to Emma Isola, then the ward and pupil of 

Charles Lamb, and who afterwards became the wife of Edward 

Moxon. 

TO EMMA, LEARNING LATIN, AND DESPONDING. 

Droop not, dear Emma, dry those falling tears, 

And call up smiles into thy pallid face, 

Pallid and careworn with thy arduous race; 

In few brief months thou hast done the work of years. 

To young beginnings natural are these fears. 

A right good scholar shalt thou one day be, 

And that no distant one; when even she. 

Who now to thee a star far-oif appears, 

That most rare latinist, the Northern Maid, 

The language-loving Sarah 2 of the lake — 



1 June, 1829 (p. 751). 

2 "Daughter of S, T. Coleridge, Esq., an accomplished linguist in the Greek 
and Latin tongues, and translatress of a History of the Abipones."— [iV<?.^^ by 
Mary Lamb.l 



220 Notes, 

Shall hail thee sister linguist. This will make 
Thy friends, who now afford thee careful aid, 
A recompense most rich for all their pains. 
Counting thy acquisitions their best gains. 

Mary Lamb. 

INCORRECT SPEAKING. 

(Page 125.) 
The cockney rhyme of "Anna" and "manner" would be con- 
vincing proof, if other internal evidence were wanting, that this 
poem is the production of Mary and not of Charles Lamb. 

THE BEASTS IN THE TOWER. 
(Page 131.) 
Printed in MyKus' First Book of Poetry. For 
" Perils and snares on every ground 
Like these wild beasts beset us round." 
The original edition reads — 

"Like these wild beast besets us round," 
and the American edition has preserved and repeated the error. It 
is so obviously a misprint that we have ventured to correct it in 
the text. 

THE RAINBOW. 
(Page 141.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry. . 

CLOCK STRIKING. (Page 145.) 

WHY NOT DO IT, SIR, TO-DAY? (Page 146.) 

HOME DELIGHTS. (Page 147.) 

These three poems are omitted in the Boston reprint oi Poetry for 
Children pubhshed in 1812, a circumstance much to be regretted, as 
it renders a very pretty volume and a great bibliographical curiosity 
after all an imperfect book. 



Notes, 221 

CLOCK STRIKING. 
(Page I45-) 
That this poem was written by Charles Lamb a curious parallel 
rhyme in his acknowledged poem of Hester seems to leave little 
doubt. 

"I was near her, and saw the girl start 
With such exquisite wonder, such feelings of pride, 
A happiness almost to terror allied. 

She showed the wound went to her heart." 

Compare those in Hester — 

" . . .if 'twas not pride. 
It was a joy to that allied.'''' 



THE COFFEE SLIPS. 

(Page 148.) 

Printed in Mylius' Poetical Class-Book. This poem was unknown 

to Mr. Carew Hazlitt when publishing his Inedited Remains of 

Charles and Mary Lamb ; but it reappeared in the selection from 

Poetry for Children published by Mr. Pickering in 1872. 

TIME SPENT IN DRESS. 
(Page 155.) 
Printed in Mylius' First Book of Poetry, but without the second 
and third stanzas. 



QUEEN ORIANA'S DREAM. 
(Page 168.) 
Charles Lamb acknowledged this poem by reprinting it as his 
own in his collected works in 18 18. 



222 Notes. 

DAVID IN THE CAVE OF ADULLAM. 
(Page 179.) 
Printed in Mylius' Poetical Class-Book. This poem — the last 
piece in the Poetry for Children — is the only one of his sister's that 
Lamb reprinted when collecting his works in 181 8. It may there- 
fore be safely assumed that the previous poem, entitled David, 
describing his adventure with Goliath, is also hers. 

PRINCE DORUS. 
(Page 181.) 
The full title of the original is : " Prince Dorus ; or. Flattery put 
out of Countenance. A poetical Version of an Aticietit Tale. Ilhis- 
trated with a Series of Elegant Engravings. Price 2s. 6d. coloured, 
or IS. 6d. plain. London. Printed for M. J. Godwin, at the 
Juvenile Library, No. 41, Skinner- street. 181 1," small square, 8vo. 
Title, sig. B 2 to B 8, 31 pages of text. The engravings are nine in 
number, and represent "The Enchanted Cat," " Minon Asleep," 
"The Transformation," "Prince Dorus and his Maids," " Claribel 
Carried off," "Visit to the Beneficent Fairy," "Prince Dorus 
offended," "Truth brought Home," "Self-knowledge obtains its 
Reward." 

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN MISS J 

WESTWOOD'S ALBUM. M 

(Page 199.) 
First printed in the Athenceit?n, January 10, 1846; and again in 
Notes and Queries, 4th S. v. 528 (June 4, 1870), accompanied in the 
latter case by the following lines by Mary Lamb from the same 
Album : — 

" Small beauty to your Book my lines can lend, 
Yet you shall have the best I can, sweet friend, 
To serve for poor memorials 'gainst the day 
That calls you from your Parent-roof away. 



Notes 223 



From the mild offices of Filial life 

To the more serious duties of a Wife. 

The World is opening to you — may you rest 

With all your prospects realized, and blest 1 — 

I, with the Elder Couple left behind, 

On evenings chatting, oft shall call to mind 

Those spirits of Youth, which Age so ill can miss, 

And, wanting you, half grudge your S n's bUss : 

Till mirthful malice tempts us to exclaim 

'Gainst the dear Thief who robbed you of your Name. 

" Mary Lamb. 
''Enfield Chase, 17th May, 1828." 

LINES ADDRESSED TO LIEUT. R. W. H. HARDY. 

(Page 200.) 
Printed in the Athen(2um, January 10, 1846. Whether the note 
to the word "diver " is attributable to the author or to the person 
who communicated the lines, I am unable to determine. 

THE FIRST LEAF OF SPRING. 
(Page 201.) 
Printed in the Athenmtm, January 10, 1846, and also, apparently, 
at an earlier date, in some obscure and fugitive publication of which 
I have not succeeded in ascertaining the name. 

THE APE. 
(Page 203.) 

These lines appeared in the London Magazine, October, 1820, 
signed with the four asterisks which Lamb was wont to use at that 
period in his contributions to the Indicator and the Examiner. 
They were first included in Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's edition of 
Lamb's Works, vol. vi. 

L. M. was the same Louisa Martin playfully addressed by Lamb 

in another poem ; — " To Louisia M , whom I used to call 

' Monkey ' " {Poetical Works, ed. 1836, p. 208). 



2 24 * Notes. 

* PROLOGUE TO FAULKENER : A TRAGEDY 
BY WILLIAM GODWIN. 

(Page 206.) 
Printed in the first, and I suppose the only edition of Godwin's 
Tragedy ; but not hitherto included, I believe, in any volume or 
collection of Lamb's writings whatsoever. Seven years previously 
Lamb had written the Prologue to Godwin's play of Antonio. It 
was not, however, printed v\^ith the play, which appeared in 1800, 
but is quoted m extenso in one of Lamb's letters to Manning. 

TO THE POET COWPER. 

(Page 208.) 
Printed in the Monthly Magazine, December, 1 796. 

LINES ADDRESSED FROM LONDON TO SARA 

AND S. T. C. 

(Page 209.) 

Printed in the Monthly Magazine, January, 1797' S. T. C. was 

of course Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was then settled with his 

wife at or in the neighborhood of Bristol. :S 

SONNET TO A FRIEND. 

(Page 211.) 

Printed in the Monthly Magazine, October, 1797. 

SONNET. 

(Page 212.) 

Printed in the Monthly Magazine, December, 1797' 



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